Passive Voice

The passive voice is often maligned by grammazons as a bad writing habit. Or, to put it in the active voice, grammazons across the English-speaking world malign the passive voice as a bad writing habit.

In general, the active voice makes your writing stronger, more direct, and, you guessed it, more active. The subject is something, or it does the action of the verb in the sentence. With the passive voice, the subject is acted upon by some other performer of the verb. (In case you weren’t paying attention, the previous two sentences use the type of voice they describe.)

But the passive voice is not incorrect. In fact, there are times when it can come in handy. Read on to learn how to form the active and passive voices, when using the passive voice is a good idea, and how to avoid confusing it with similar forms.

Forming the Passive Voice

While tense is all about time references, voice describes whether the grammatical subject of a clause performs or receives the action of the verb. Here’s the formula for the active voice: [subject]+[verb (performed by the subject)]+[optional object]

Chester kicked the ball.

In a passive voice construction, the grammatical subject of the clause receives the action of the verb. So, the ball from the above sentence, which is receiving the action, becomes the subject. The formula: [subject]+[some form of the verb to be]+[past participle of a transitive verb]+[optional prepositional phrase]

The ball was kicked by Chester.

That last little bit—“by Chester”—is a prepositional phrase that tells you who the performer of the action is. But even though Chester is the one doing the kicking, he’s no longer the grammatical subject. A passive voice construction can even drop him from the sentence entirely:

The ball was kicked.

How’s that for anticlimactic?

When to use the passive voice

That said, there are times when the passive voice does a better job of presenting an idea, especially in certain formal, professional, and legal discussions. Here are three common uses of the passive voice: 1 Reports of crimes or incidents with unknown perpetrators

My car was stolen yesterday.

If you knew who stole the car, it probably wouldn’t be as big a problem. The passive voice emphasizes the stolen item and the action of theft. 2 Scientific contexts

The rat was placed into a T-shaped maze.

Who places the rat into the maze? Scientists, duh. But that’s less important than the experiment they’re conducting. Therefore, passive voice. 3 When you want to emphasize an action itself and the doer of the action is irrelevant or distracting:

The president was sworn in on a cold January morning.

How many people can remember off the top of their heads who swears in presidents? Clearly the occasion of swearing in the commander in chief is the thing to emphasize here. In each of the above contexts, the action itself—or the person or thing receiving the action—is the part that matters. That means the performer of the action can appear in a prepositional phrase or be absent from the sentence altogether.

Getting away with the passive voice in writing

The above examples show some formal uses of the passive voice, but some writers take advantage of the shift in emphasis it provides for other reasons. Here are moments when the passive voice is a stylistic decision that suits the author’s writing goals. 1 Avoid getting blamed There are times when you want to get away with something without making it crystal-clear who’s at fault. The classic example:

“Mistakes were made.” —most politicians

Who made them? Is anyone taking responsibility? What’s the solution here? One political scientist dubbed this structure the “past exonerative” because it’s meant to exonerate a speaker from whatever foul they may have committed. In other words, drop the subject, get off the hook.

2 Beat around the bush

Jane Austen is a master of poking fun at her characters so euphemistically that it seems almost polite, and the passive voice is one of her favorite methods for doing that.

“[He] pressed them so cordially to dine at Barton Park every day till they were better settled at home that, though his entreaties were carried to a point of perseverance beyond civility, they could not give offense.” —Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

Austen could have rephrased this sentence like so:

“Though Mr. Middleton carried his entreaties to a point of perseverance beyond civility, they could not give offense.”

Though maybe she means something closer to:

“Mr. Middleton pushed his invitations beyond the point of politeness and into pushiness, but he still meant well.”

In cases like this, the passive voice allows for more polite phrasing, even if it’s also a little less clear.

3 Make your reader pay more attention to the something

This is like the president getting sworn in: the thing that gets the action of the verb is more important than the people performing the action.

“That treasure lying in its bed of coral, and the corpse of the commander floating sideways on the bridge, were evoked by historians as an emblem of the city drowned in memories.” —Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

Here, you could invert the sentence to say “Historians evoked that treasure (and so on).” But that would take the focus away from that oh-so-intriguing treasure and the corpse. And since the historians are less important here, the author makes the choice to stress the key idea of the sentence through the passive voice.

Here’s another famous example that puts the emphasis on what happens to the subject, instead of on what the subject is doing:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” —The Declaration of Independence, 1776

“All men” (and these days, women, too) get boosted to the front of the phrase because their equality and rights are the focus. It makes sense that a statement declaring independence would focus on the people who get that independence, after all.

So writers use it. Can you?

The above examples lean toward the literary side of things, but don’t forget that there are times when the passive voice is useful and necessary in daily life. In each of the sentences below, the passive voice is natural and clear. Rewriting these sentences in the active voice renders them sterile, awkward, or syntactically contorted. Passive: Bob Dylan was injured in a motorcycle accident. Active: A motorcycle accident injured Bob Dylan. Passive: Elvis is rumored to be alive. Active: People rumor Elvis to be alive. Passive: Don’t be fooled! Active: Don’t allow anything to fool you!

Seriously, Don’t Be Fooled

Deciding when to use the passive voice can be tricky. Identifying it can be even trickier.

Chester’s favorite activity is kicking. The bank robbery took place just before closing time. There is nothing we can do about it. There were a great number of dead leaves covering the ground.

Despite what any well-meaning English teachers may have told you, none of the sentences above are written in the passive voice. The sentence about the leaves, in fact, was (wrongly) presented as an example of the passive voice by none other than Strunk and White in The Elements of Style. Here’s how to remember: using the verb to be doesn’t automatically put a verb phrase into the passive voice. You also need a past participle. That’s how to keep passive voice masqueraders from fooling you.

The gist is summed up here:

The passive voice isn’t a grammatical error; it’s a matter of style Use the active voice if it makes your sentence sound clearer and more natural Forming passive voice requires the verb “to be” and a past participle The passive voice is your friend when the thing receiving an action is the important part of the the sentence—especially in scientific and legal contexts, times when the performer of an action is unknown, or cases where the subject is distracting or irrelevant When it comes to good writing, don’t be passive—even if your sentences sometimes need to be.

Should You Send Them a Holiday Card?

There’s no doubt that electronic communication is fast and convenient, but there’s one time of year when we seem to prefer a more conventional approach. Americans send 1.6 billion holiday cards by postal mail annually, proving that we still favor tradition when the days get shorter and the year draws to a close.

A Little History Sir Henry Cole of London commissioned the first Christmas card in 1843 by having an artist create an image for a holiday greeting. He then had two batches of cards printed—2,050 in total—and sold them for a shilling each. Over the years, holiday cards gained momentum. Today, even the White House gets in on it. Since Calvin Coolidge issued the first official Christmas message to the American people in 1927, it’s been traditional for the president and first lady to send White House Christmas cards each year.

A Little Help Despite tradition, the holidays are a busy time and you might be tempted to cross holiday cards off your to-do list. Before you do, we have a few tips on how to wrap up this annual task faster than you can say “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”! Remember that not everyone you’ve ever met needs to get a card this year. If you’re still sending yuletide cheer to distant relatives and old friends whom you haven’t actually spoken to in decades, it may be time to cross them off the list. If you don’t want to feel like a total Grinch, consider sending an environmentally friendly ecard instead. Our tongue-in-cheek flowchart will help you decide who to ditch! When it comes to getting your holiday cards sent out, organization is key. You know how Santa’s elves manage to make all those toys? No, it’s not magic; it’s efficient production. If you’re using snail mail, prevent carpal tunnel syndrome and embarrassing spelling errors by printing out address labels. Draft a message on your computer (and check it for grammar mistakes; may we suggest Grammarly?), then copy it by hand onto your cards or cut and paste into your ecard. It’s a lot easier to work in batches, completing each step for all your cards. Sending holiday cards can be a delightful way to let people know you’re thinking of them. Put on some seasonal music, pour a glass of eggnog, and carry on this time-honored tradition.

Holiday Card Flowchart for Pro Adults

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What PS Means and How to Use It Correctly in Your Email

In the days before email, Paul McCartney famously sang, “PS I love you” on The Beatles’ 1963 album, Please Please Me. But what does PS mean and how do we use it in modern communication?

What Is the Meaning of PS?

PS stands for postscript. It comes from the Latin postscriptum, which literally means “written after.” A postscript is an additional thought added to letters (and sometimes other documents) that comes after it has been completed.

Here’s a tip: People wonder—does the PS come before or after the signature? Since a postscript is an addition that comes after a letter is completed, it should always follow the signature.

In the days of handwritten and typed letters, we often found ourselves remembering something we wanted to include only after we’d signed off. That’s where a PS came in handy. It’s also often used for effect to add a clever or funny afterthought. It can be added for emphasis, or even as an argumentative “So there!” It’s a tool still used in direct and email marketing, which we’ll talk about in a moment.

The P.S. is the most charming part of a letter. It’s the wink you give as you walk away.

—Shaun Usher, author of Letters of Note, for The Wall Street Journal

 

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READ: The 15 Most Common Email Mistakes of 2017

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How to Punctuate and Format PS

Should PS be capitalized? How is it abbreviated; with (P.S.) or without (PS) periods? Should you use any trailing punctuation? Surprisingly, there are no hard and fast answers to these questions.

The Cambridge Dictionary suggests that PS is the proper format in British English.

PS Don’t forget to let the cat in before you go to bed.

The Cambridge Dictionary also says that P.S. (with periods after each letter) is the American English format. Indeed, you’ll often find it abbreviated as such in the US. But The Chicago Manual of Style favors PS, without the periods.

The verdict? Usage varies, and PS doesn’t factor into most style guides. The safest bet is to capitalize the P and S (use periods after each letter if that’s your preference), and leave out any trailing punctuation.

PS in Email

PS once saved us from having to edit or rewrite an entire letter just to include an important afterthought. But email allows us to go back and edit before sending. Technically, we could avoid the use of PS altogether in electronic communication. But should we?

Not really. PS is still useful for effect, and it’s a great way to get a specific point noticed. Although the Internet has made us a culture of skimmers rather than people who read things like email word-for-word, we tend to notice what’s at the beginning and end of a text. Can you think of a time when you didn’t read the PS in an email you cared enough about to open?

Including a PS has long been a direct mail marketing strategy. Statistics once showed that as many as 79 percent of people who opened a direct mail letter would read the PS first. Although times have changed, email marketers still swear by it as a way to reiterate a call to action, create FOMO, provide some sort of bonus information or offer, or even share a testimonial.

Examples of PS in a Letter

To demonstrate just how effective a PS can be, here are some examples from letters written by famous and notable people. (Read more at Letters of Note.)

John Lennon

We opened this article with The Beatles, so let’s return to that theme for a moment. Here’s a letter John Lennon famously wrote to a groupie who dissed Yoko Ono. This PS isn’t exactly an I love you.

Yoko’s been an artist before you were ever a groupie. Why don’t you open your box and dig ‘Mind Train’ on [Yoko/Plastic Ono band album] ‘Fly’? Your prejudices can’t be that deep.

Love, John Lennon

P.S. You might have an aging problem. Me? I wouldn’t go back one day!

Ronald Reagan

This excerpt comes from a letter Ronald Reagan penned to his son, Michael, in 1971, shortly after Michael was married.

. . . Mike, you know better than many what an unhappy home is and what it can do to others. Now you have a chance to make it come out the way it should. There is no greater happiness for a man than approaching a door at the end of a day knowing someone on the other side of that door is waiting for the sound of his footsteps.

Love,

Dad

P.S. You’ll never get in trouble if you say “I love you” at least once a day.

Philip K. Dick

In 1973, four years before it was published, Philip K. Dick sent his agent, Scott Meredith, an outline of his novel A Scanner Darkly. This cover letter includes an enthusiastic PS.

Dear Scott:

Here is the outline for my proposed new novel. A SCANNER DARKLY, which I told you about. It’s a good long outline, running well over sixty pages. I guess you can’t sell it to any publisher until I write a bunch of sample chapters, but anyhow this is what I’ll be working on for quite some time.

If you’d like to show it—for example to Doubleday—that would of course be fine with me. Otherwise, hang onto this outline while I continue from my carbon.

Let me know what you think of it, and meanwhile I’ll keep you posted as to how I’m coming with the novel itself.

Cordially,

Philip K. Dick

P.S. I swear, Scott, this is shaping up to be the greatest novel ever written. Or at least the greatest novel I’ve ever written, anyhow.

Richard Feynman

Influential American physicist Richard Feynman (a 1965 Nobel Prize winner) lost his wife and high school sweetheart, Arline, when she died of tuberculosis at age 25. In October 1946, sixteen months after Arline’s death, he wrote her a tender love letter, which remained in a sealed envelope until after his death in 1988.

. . . I know you will assure me that I am foolish and that you want me to have full happiness and don’t want to be in my way. I’ll bet you are surprised that I don’t even have a girlfriend (except you, sweetheart) after two years. But you can’t help it, darling, nor can I — I don’t understand it, for I have met many girls and very nice ones and I don’t want to remain alone — but in two or three meetings they all seem ashes. You only are left to me. You are real.

My darling wife, I do adore you.

I love my wife. My wife is dead.

Rich.

PS Please excuse my not mailing this — but I don’t know your new address.

How to Update Your LinkedIn Profile with Stealth-like Precision

Every social circle has that one friend who occasionally “stalks” people online. Don’t be alarmed. It’s more common than you might realize and can give you greater perspective on your career path. You mention someone’s first name to the group, and moments later . . . voila! Your friend has found that person’s Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts.

In my group of friends, that investigative person is me.

I aim to use these powers for good. But having this level of social media awareness comes with consequences. It means that, when I’m trying to operate online in stealth mode, I trend toward the paranoid end of the spectrum. What if I want to update my LinkedIn profile, network privately, or investigate future employment opportunities? Is there someone at my company that can uncover these items as efficiently as I can?

To be safe, I always assume the things I type online are public. Regardless of privacy settings, medium, or channel, I know I’m one screenshot away from any information becoming public. But when it comes to professional “research,” I do have a few tips to make your networking, job search, or plans to exit a company more discreet.

1 LinkedIn Profile Evaluation 101

In order to get a sense of the level of awareness you need on LinkedIn, let’s start by viewing LinkedIn from a curiosity perspective. With its emphasis on searchability, transparency, and public perception, LinkedIn is the ideal social network for would-be stalkers, from potential contacts to your current manager.

The first thing you should know is that LinkedIn will notify someone any time you look at their profile, if you are logged in and in a non-incognito window. This essentially makes a “profile view” like a first point of contact with a person, so if you aren’t ready to engage with a potential customer, partner, or employer, don’t initiate contact this way.

Here’s a tip: Pro Tip: Want to look at someone’s LinkedIn profile without letting them know you “viewed” their profile? Search them in LinkedIn’s native search, then right click and copy-paste their LinkedIn profile URL to a new incognito window.

Searching for potential new contacts in LinkedIn is deceptively easy, with extra filters and searching functionality for users with LinkedIn Premium. When a LinkedIn user pops up in your search results, it won’t count as a “profile view,” unless you click through to their actual LinkedIn profile. This may seem small, but it’s something to keep in mind if you simply want to find a specific person in a specific role at a specific company.

Here’s a tip: Pro Tip: LinkedIn also provides insight into the other side of the search experience. Check out this link to see who has been searching for your profile.

2What LinkedIn Information Is Public?

Unless you have edited your settings, most of your LinkedIn profile is public. Information like your name, company, summary, and experience can be viewed by other LinkedIn users and the general public. In fact, LinkedIn recently updated their platform to make all status updates public, meaning that they’re picked up by search engines like Google. This can be helpful from a “research” perspective, but it also means you should be careful what you post.

In general, this means that you should be careful about what you update, when you update, and how you update on LinkedIn. LinkedIn has a default setting that notifies your LinkedIn connections (including coworkers and your boss) if you update your profile. If you’re actively searching for a new job, you will want to turn this off.

3How to Make Parts of Your LinkedIn Profile Private

That’s the bad news: most of LinkedIn is public by default. The good news is that you can update your settings to be as public or as stealthy as you like. You can adjust these settings depending on your needs. Need to promote your personal brand? You probably want your profile to be public. Want to look for a new job? It’s probably a good idea to increase the level of privacy on your profile. Here’s how you can do that:

1 First, you’re going to want to turn off that pesky “update everyone I know when I edit my profile” feature. To do this, first click the “edit” pencil icon.

Next, switch the option at the bottom marked “Share profile changes” to “No.”

Voila! You’ve officially entered stealth mode.

2 Now, what if you want to make your profile less public? It’s time to take a long, hard look at your privacy settings. To reach these, just click the top-right menu option that says “Settings & Privacy.”

Then, click on “Privacy,” and you’ll see a host of options to make your profile less publicly-accessible. This is where you can specify whether you show up in search results, news results, on your company’s page, etc.

After this, you can also check out the “Job seeking” menu, which allows you to turn on “job seeker” mode. This stealthily lets recruiters know that you’re open to new opportunities. Although LinkedIn has said they block recruiters from your company from seeing this feature, it’s always possible for a bug to show up in the system, so be wary. You can learn more about how LinkedIn built “job seeker” mode here.

How do you sneakily update LinkedIn? Any tips I missed?

5 Tough Interview Questions and the Perfect Responses for Them

Congratulations. (Maybe. Hopefully!)

You haven’t clinched your new job yet, but getting this far is encouraging. You may already be excitedly imagining life in your upcoming role, but the more immediate task at hand will be nailing the interview. That means it’s time to prepare for an array of tough potential interview questions you may have to field.

Besides knowing how you want to present your background and experience, it helps to research the place you’re applying. What challenges are they facing? How are they evolving? How might someone with your resume be an asset in that process? Knowing how to couch your answers in that context is essential to crushing whatever tough questions an interviewer might throw out.

To help you get ready, we’ve put together this list of challenging queries worth rehearsing for. While not all are guaranteed to come up—and unforeseen curveballs from “who are your heroes?” to “what’s your favorite food?” have sometimes tilted brilliant minds—considering these questions in advance can help you steer the conversation with grace and aplomb.

We’ll start, as many interviews do, with a deceptively simple doozy:

Can you tell me about yourself?

The key here is to be succinct and not get overwhelmed with the multitude of possible answers. Seize this opportunity to give a quick career overview that highlights relevant strengths and accomplishments.

Wrong approach: “I grew up in North Alabama, or upstate Alabama as my mom likes to joke, aheh. But it’s funny, I never really got into outdoorsy stuff until I discovered beer, so as a kid I always…” NO.

Right approach: “While majoring in journalism I began developing a portfolio by writing and editing for the student newspaper and volunteering at my college radio station. That helped me secure an internship that set me up after graduation to…” SOLID.

Ideally, this dovetails into one particular accomplishment that’s easy to summarize—a recent project you successfully spearheaded, or an award you won, perhaps—before you stick the landing with what you hope to do next, and how that aligns with the position you’re applying for.

That last part is worth thinking through, lest you get caught flat-footed by this little peach:

How does this job fit into your life plan?

Another variation on this theme is “Where do you see yourself in five years?”

Wrong response: “I… I have no idea! I’ll be so much older then—So many doors will have closed, augh!”

Also the wrong response: “Sleeping on the same futon, looking at a fancier phone.”

To knock this one out of the park, understand the basis for asking it. The interviewer wants to know what motivates you, in order to better gauge what kind of match you might be for the position, and what potential you and the company have to grow together. The last thing they want is to hire someone who, in a few short months, will feel like they’re at a dead end and want out.

Remember, you’re not etching your fate into stone with your answer so much as explaining why you’re a good fit.

What’s your greatest weakness?

That sound you just heard was a thousand potential hires gulping in unison. There are a few ways to handle this without taking yourself out of the running:

• Make it about something that doesn’t particularly matter to the job at hand. Having a clear grasp of what the position entails can help here. Just beware—not everyone has the luxury of deciding some aspect of a job is outside their wheelhouse and not their problem.
• Describe an area where you’ve improved, and explain how. Why was it a challenge, what did you do to improve it, and how can you illustrate your success?
• Frame a weakness as an asset. For instance: “Before sending out copy, I always find myself triple-checking to make sure it’s free of errors. I realize that’s not something anyone can afford to spend all day on, so I’ve pushed myself to manage my time deliberately, so I always have a chance to look back and polish my work well before my deadline.”

You want the focus of the interview to be everything that makes you a strong candidate; don’t let this question derail that emphasis.

What does your ideal company look like?

Questions in this vein range from “Why do you want to work here?” to “Describe your dream job,” and they can blindside an applicant who hasn’t prepared.

Again, advance research is crucial so you can connect your answer to your prospective role in specific terms. As ever, you don’t want to remove yourself from consideration by essentially telling the interviewer you’d hate working there.

Wrong response: “My ideal company is small and nimble, so ideally I wouldn’t have to work under the managerial bloat this place seems to suffer from.”

Right response: “I think the value of agility is hard to overstate, so the way this company uses the divide-and-conquer approach to tackle problems resonates with me. I think my skills with pair programming could really shine in that respect.”

And finally:

Why should I hire you?

This is your chance to give the interviewer FOMO—a fear that if they don’t offer you the gig, they’ll miss out. You want to emphasize your uniqueness—the value you alone can offer, which no other candidate could rival. And you don’t want to water down your sales pitch by droning on, so it needs to be straightforward.

It’s worth spending some time to think through an organized response beforehand, so based on everything you know about what your prospective employer needs done, choose a few specific qualities to underscore. Think through why they make you the standout pick to do the work and enhance the team. Then practice explaining as much out loud, so it comes naturally; these are your strongest attributes you’re talking about, after all.

You’re going to do great in there, by the way. Good luck!

Here’s How to Write a Perfect Letter of Interest

Your perfect job with the perfect company may not be advertised. So, how do you find gigs from within the hidden job market? You ask about them. Here’s how to write a letter of interest that will get you noticed . . . and maybe even result in a job.

Years ago, before I was the full-blown word monkey that I am today, I relocated to a new city. I’d left a job I loved—doing marketing for a dog grooming school. I knew I wanted to keep working in a field related to both marketing and pets. But I also knew that, in the small city I’d moved to, that was going to be a pretty slim job search net to cast. I’d have to get creative.

I set my sights on a large, upscale pet boarding kennel. I wrote the kennel’s owners a letter of interest, including clips from a portfolio of marketing materials I’d created, and asked them if they needed some help from an experienced pet industry professional to build their brand even further.

Although the kennel didn’t have an opening, or any role related to marketing, they did call me in to chat. Two weeks later, they created a position for me and I was employed doing something I enjoyed in an industry I loved.

Why Write a Letter of Interest?

The letter of interest is a job prospecting tool. Job hunting legend has it that 70 to 80 percent of open positions are never advertised. Although that figure is probably way higher than it should be, the truth is there are potential job opportunities out there that you’re not hooking as you troll the waters of Glassdoor, Indeed, and Monster.com.

Say you’re intrigued by a young startup and you wish they were hiring for a position that fit your skills. You could haunt the careers page of their website and hope for the best, or you could write a letter of interest to introduce yourself and begin the networking process. Which do you think will yield the best results?

A letter of interest may not get you immediately hired, but it has many advantages. It shows you have both interest and initiative—two things employers are always looking for. It also demonstrates your ability to market yourself through personal branding. In many cases, your letter will be regarded as a formal request to be considered for employment, so it will become part of a human resources file. When a position does open, guess whose letter and resume will be at the top of the pile instead of buried under a mountain of applications?

Your goal is to find out exactly what the company of your dreams looks for in an employee. Then, you’re going to become that person—the mythical Ideal Candidate.

How to Write a Letter of Interest

1 Write it like a business letter.

The first and most important thing to remember about writing a letter of interest is that it’s a business letter—treat it like one. Use the standard business letter format. Be professional.

Here’s a tip: Being professional doesn’t mean being stuffy. It’s always a good idea to try to match the communication style of the company you’re reaching out to. Look at their marketing copy, job postings, and website. If their approach to communication is more casual, yours can be, too.

2 Find the right contact.

Even if you have to call the company, get the name (and possibly the email address) of the best person to contact with your inquiry. If you do call or email to ask for a contact name, be direct. Say, “I’m interested in learning more about employment opportunities in your [department]. Would you tell me the name of the person responsible for hiring those positions and the best way to contact them?”

3 Research the company.

I scored that marketing job in a long-ago time before the Internet was mainstream. When I wrote my hard copy letter and prepared my clips, I didn’t even know what a letter of interest was. I was operating on instinct. You have the advantage of a ton of information right in your pocket anytime you need it. Let’s use it!

Your goal is to find out exactly what the company of your dreams looks for in an employee. Then, you’re going to become that person—the mythical Ideal Candidate. Check the company’s social media feeds and the careers and culture pages on its website for clues about the type of people they hire. Read job descriptions for their open positions; they’ll give you insight even if the jobs aren’t a fit for your talents.

Learn about their brand style—are they funky and fun or conservative and all business? Mirror that style to show that you’d be a good cultural fit.

4 Show how you’d add value.

Unlike a cover letter, where you’re homing in on skills and traits for a specific position, a letter of interest should demonstrate to the employer that you have a variety of skills that would make you a great fit in lots of different places. Think broadly and you’ll open more doors. What skills would make you an asset to the company?

The key to a successful letter of interest is not in showing off what you can do, but in showing what you can do for the company. Demonstrate excitement, not arrogance.

5 Keep it short, but write it powerfully.

Hiring managers and department heads don’t have a lot of extra time to read your magnum opus on why you’re awesome. The key is to be brief but memorable. Make every word count.

Avoid filler words and phrases. Keep your writing lean and clean. Use some power words to make your writing pop.

Letter of Interest Structure

Date

Let’s start with the simple stuff first! (You do know what day it is, right?) You’ll need this only for hard copy letters; in email, the date stamp is fine.

Contact Information

In a hard copy letter, put your contact info here. Include your phone number and email address. In an email, include your contact information after your signature, instead.

Here’s a tip: You don’t have to put Phone: and Email: in front of your phone number and email address. That’s just clutter. The hiring manager probably won’t have trouble figuring out what that ten-digit number and the thing with the @ symbol are.

Salutation

Greet the hiring manager or department head by name. And please do your best to find a name. (See Tip #2!) Avoid To Whom It May Concern. Nobody ever got truly concerned with, or even interested in, an email that began thus.

Opening Paragraph

Briefly introduce yourself and tell the hiring manager why you’re writing. Share your enthusiasm for the company—why do you want to work there?

Qualifications/Experience Paragraph

Talk about what you bring to the table. Let the hiring manager know why hiring you would add value to her team. Demonstrate the qualities you have that mesh well with the company’s mission and culture. (This is why you did all that research!)

The key to a successful letter of interest is not in showing off what you can do, but in showing what you can do for the company. Think in terms of excitement, not arrogance.

Close by casting a networking net.

You’re not going to close by saying something like “I hope you’ll keep me in mind if you have an opening in the future,” right?

Never! You’re better than that.

Close by asking for something. Use a call-to-action (CTA) to encourage the hiring manager to connect with you. You might ask for an informational interview—an opportunity for you to sit down with the hiring manager and learn more about the company.

Letter of Interest Example

Dear Mr./Ms. Last Name:

I’ve been following the Alpha Beta Company’s trajectory since it launched in 2007. When the company reached 10 million active users last month, I thought about how exciting it would be to be part of a team with the potential to grow that number to 20 million and beyond. I’m writing you to express my interest in joining your team and to learn more about upcoming employment opportunities.

I’ve been a user acquisition manager at XYZ, Inc. for five years. At XYZ, I developed the go-to-market strategy for new apps and performed analysis to calculate how our campaigns influenced user engagement. As you may know, XYZ operates in a smaller niche market. Even so, during my time with them, XYZ’s user base grew from just five hundred beta users to over 3 million today. In the ten years since I graduated with a bachelor of science in business and marketing from Great Big University, I’ve managed and launched hundreds of successful marketing campaigns on channels ranging from print media to social media to videos.

I’m excited by the idea of working in a larger market and for a company that is constantly innovating and recognized as an industry leader. I’ve enclosed my resume, which outlines my experience and skills. I’d love to sit down and talk with you about Alpha Beta’s explosive growth and new user acquisition strategy. Would you be open to meeting with me at your convenience?

Sincerely,

Your Name

Affect vs. Effect

Affect and effect are easy to mix up. Here’s the short version of how to use affect vs. effect. Affect is usually a verb, and it means to impact or change. Effect is usually a noun, an effect is the result of a change. Watch out! There are certain situations and fixed phrases that break the general usage rules for these words.

Now that the basics are out of the way, the time has come to learn the intricacies of how to use affect and effect effectively. Or is it affectively? If you’re lucky, it may well be a little bit of both. (For the curious, effective would mean successful in this context. And when it comes to grammar, success is the goal.)

The Difference Between Affect and Effect

Is it affect or effect? In a nutshell, affect is a verb and effect is a noun. At least (spoiler alert!), most of the time. In the majority of cases, you’ll encounter the words as these parts of speech.

So, if A affects B, B experiences the effect of A’s action.

Huh?

Imagine Ruby (A) pushes Raphael (B) into a pond. Ruby affects where Raphael is standing. Raphael being wet is the effect of Ruby’s irresistible urge to push him into a pond.

Because Ruby performed an action, that signals the use of a verb: affect. The result, or effect, of that verb is “wetness,” a noun that is probably causing Raphael a whole lot of discomfort.

Affect and effect are different parts of speech, but they sound almost identical. Sound-alike pairs like affect vs. effect are tricky because many people pronounce them as homophones, which means, well, that they sound alike. Bear/bare, here/hear, and write/right are other examples. So when it comes to writing the right word, here are the rules to help you bear the struggle.

When to Use Affect

Affect means to influence or to produce a change in something.

The tornado affected citizens within forty miles of Topeka. The medicine will affect your eyesight for at least an hour. Winning the swimming medal affected Tina’s performance in school, too.

Here’s a tip: Here’s a mnemonic: A is for action. Verbs are about action. Affect starts with an A, so it’s a verb. Presto.

Examples of Affect

Gravity affects everything in the universe, but the amount of gravity affecting an object depends on two things: the masses of the objects being attracted and the distance between the objects.

(Study.com, “The Effects of Mass Distance on Gravity”)

To avoid ecological issues, scientists and governing agencies consider how sustainable development affects the environment and its place in deciding future environmental issues.

(Bright Hub, “Sustainable Development for Affecting Environments Positively”)

And we could do nothing to help them; Dunham was crying quietly beside me, and all the men were affected by the piteous cries.

(John Keegan, The First World War)

Note that in that last example, the men are “affected” because they are changed by the disturbing events of war, but that this change has an emotional factor, too. When a person is affected by an event, that often means that the effect is mainly on the level of emotion or psychology. More on that in the exceptions section.

When to Use Effect

Effect is a noun, and it means the result of a change. So, if an event affects your life, you will feel the event’s effect.

The effect of the tornado was devastating. You’ll feel the effect of the medication in the next twenty minutes. Tina’s big win had an effect on her confidence level overall.

Here’s a tip: Think of the common phrase cause and effect. Cause ends with an E, and effect begins with an E. So not only does a cause lead to an effect, but also cause’s E leads to effect’s E, giving you a handy noun bridge to step across and remember which spelling to use.

Examples of Effect

Climate change may actually benefit some plants by lengthening growing seasons and increasing carbon dioxide. Yet other effects of a warmer world, such as more pests, droughts, and flooding, will be less benign.

(National Geographic, “Climate Change: 5 Ways It Will Affect You”)

With this measure, Lincoln effectively isolated the Confederacy and killed the institution that was at the root of sectional differences.

(History.com, “The Emancipation Proclamation Takes Effect”)

And the bell had the effect of releasing us all from the paralyzing tension we had just survived—but only for an instant.

(John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany)

And here’s a twofer, just for fun:

The most common side effects of antibiotics affect the digestive system.

(NHS Choices, “Antibiotics: Side Effects”)

Affect vs. Effect: How to Remember the Difference

In sum: keep your eyes on the prize. In this case, the prize is the first letter of each word. Don’t forget: “Affect” starts with A for Action—meaning it’s a verb—and with “Effect,” you can jump straight from “Cause” to “Effect” over that convenient E.

If you get that letter trick memorized, it should affect your spelling of these words immediately. In other words, make sure you spell them correctly.

Watch out for Exceptions!

Now that you’ve mastered the basic difference—effect as a noun and affect as a verb—it’s time to shake things up. In some contexts, effect is a verb and affect is a noun. Thanks a lot, English.

Effect as a Verb

Effect as a verb means to bring about. It usually shows up with nouns like “change” or “solutions.”

The protesters wanted to effect change in the corrupt government.

In other words, they wanted to bring about the effect of change—maybe by getting the government to change its policies or even step down.

If you use affect here, it would mean “to have an effect on change” or “to impact change.” Protesters who want to “affect change” would be trying to impact existing changes. That’s nice, but not as powerful as creating change, especially when there’s a corrupt government on the line.

It doesn’t have to be quite so revolutionary, either. This one is about social media:

What once seemed like a trivial way to keep in touch with friends, sharing photos and jokes, has become a force for societal change, […] empowering citizens of the world to unite and effect change in a number of ways.

—The Huffington Post, “Social Media as a Formidable Force for Change”

If this discussion about social media had to do with citizens trying to “affect change,” that would probably mean that they’re trying to speed up, slow down, or totally stop all forms of change that have to do with social media. Ironically, it might be easier to effect change with a really powerful Facebook movement than to affect the changes that are happening to society because of the widespread use of social media. Funny how that works, right?

Affect as a Noun

Affect as a noun means feeling, emotion, or specific emotional response.

The patient had a flat affect throughout the therapy session.

Sounds like the patient was in kind of a blah mood. Not too complicated (except maybe for the patient).

Here’s another:

Understanding more about the primary innate affects and the plasticity of the brain has important clinical implications.

—Psychology Today, “Affects, Language, and Cognition”

Say what? This is a great example of complex psychological jargon you might find in a psychology clinic or journal (like, for example, Psychology Today). It’s great if you’re studying basic feelings and brain activity—which is what this sentence is about—but if not, you’re probably safe with the knowledge that “affects” means “feelings” here.

If you think that’s a bit complicated, no hard affects. That is, no hard feelings. You probably don’t have to worry about this one too much unless you’re in the field of psychology.

But now if you come across a line about a graduation speaker having a huge affect on her audience, you can piece together whether the writer misspelled “effect” or the entire graduating class was moved to tears.

Affected as an Adjective

Well, this one comes out of left field. But affected can indeed be used as an adjective to mean pretentious, artificial, or designed to impress. It usually isn’t a compliment, and means that someone is acting stuck-up or trying to look like they’re more important than they actually are.

Note that when someone acts affected, it looks very different from when people are affected by something on an emotional level, like the soldiers above.

Here’s a literary example:

‘And yet’—the regent scratched one ear gently in affected abstraction—‘I wouldn’t call myself exactly incompetent.’

—Isaac Asimov, Foundation

See what the regent did there? His scratch is “affected” because this guy clearly knows he is not incompetent. In fact, he is very competent. He may even think he’s the most competent person around. Think of it this way: the regent’s behavior is affected by his own arrogance and sense of superiority.

What kind of effect do you think that has on the people around this guy?

Recap: When to Use Affect or Effect

Let’s recap exactly how and when to use which word.:

Use “affect” as the verb in a sentence when you’re talking about producing change or making a difference. For example, a new discovery can affect a scientific theory, and failing a test can affect someone’s mood.

Here are some synonyms of affect: alter, change, influence, modify, and impact (the verb version). That list should affect your understanding of the word. In this case, “affect” would mean “improve.”

“Effect” is a noun, and it is the outcome of an event or situation that created a change. The effect of the change can be big or small, but the fact that something changed is what makes the noun form of effect so important. For example, you can feel the effects of a cold or an earthquake, and the sun coming out can have a positive effect on your mood.

Some synonyms of effect include words like result, repercussion, consequence, outcome, aftermath, and the noun version of impact.

Affect vs. Effect Grammar Quiz

Let’s test how effective this explanation was! Test your understanding of affect and effect with our short and fun quiz. Keep track of your mistakes and comment on any questions that come up.

Do you need more details? There’s no more effective way to get to know a word than to see it in print.

Additional Information

What makes these two little words extra tricky is that they sound pretty much identical. Yes, that’s the homophone thing we mentioned earlier. For the most part, people will pronounce affect and effect almost exactly the same. But, every once in awhile, they won’t.

If you listen closely, in some cases you’ll be able to hear a slight difference in the first syllable of the two different words. So, “effect” has a slightly stronger “eh” sound, like in “red,” while affect is pronounced a bit more lazily, as “uh-ffect.” But don’t count on those slight differences to tell one word from the other. Only a very careful enunciator will make the distinction at all, and it’s a very subtle distinction, anyway.

On top of pronunciation, there are a few other phrases and unusual uses of these two words that deserve a glance. Here goes:

• There’s a whole scholarly field called affect studies, which studies affect—the emotional kind. You can even read all about how emotion is a big, academic deal in The Affect Theory Reader.
• Personal effects is an idiom: in this case, effects essentially means belongings. Chances are, your belongings have had some effect on your wallet, closet space, or personal life. Hence, personal effects.
• Effective means successful in bringing about a desired result.
• Affective means producing affect, in the emotional sense. If The Affect Theory Reader affects how you feel about affect, that would make it an affective book.

So, if this article was affective, you were emotionally moved by learning the difference between affect and effect. If it was effective, you’ll use those words correctly from now on. It’s pretty much a win-win situation.