The copywriter is armed with features and benefits, products and services. Some of your products only appeal to large businesses; some benefits only apply to small businesses. In a world governed by logic and mathematics, it would make sense to say everything. ‘The more things I say, the more things I’ll sell’.

Think about the accountancy firm providing services across a range of disciplines: tax, audit, payroll and bookkeeping. Every time they introduce their company should they talk about all their services? If they don’t, they could miss out on a customer who’s unsure if they provide the service they need.

Now think about benefits. You save people money, you provide good customer service and you’re quicker than anyone else. So, should you say it all in the first paragraph lest your prospects flee before finding out?

This problem leads to slogans like these:

Friendly. Cheap. Fast.

We design, code and market websites

The easy way to buy or sell your home

It leads to sales pitches that start like this:

I’d like to talk to you about three products

And it leads to phrases like this:

Perfect for businesses big and small

The desire to be comprehensive causes lots of copy to be embarrassingly bad. Ever come across the copywriter who has to explain the client’s brief so you can understand their copy? ‘They asked me to come up with something that touches upon X, Y and Z so I came up with this.’ Ah. Now it make sense.

When we want to compare two things, we often use like or as. But, where should you use like, and where should you use as?

To understand the answer, you first need to understand the difference between conjunctions and prepositions.

Conjunctions

A conjunction is a word – such as or, and or but – that connects clauses, phrases or words in a sentence. Here are some examples:

“Jerry was capable and conscientious”

“The building will collapse unless it is shored up”

“Neither a borrower nor a lender be”

“Jim was fired because he lost the company millions”

Prepositions

A preposition is a word – such as by, with, to, in or for – which comes before a noun, noun phase or pronoun, and shows a relationship to another word in the sentence. Again, here are examples:

“We were startled by the noise”

“James put the kettle on the stove”

In the first sentence, by connects noise to startled, and on connects stove to kettle in the second.

Not the same

Although both prepositions and conjunctions connect things in a sentence, they are not generally interchangeable. For instance, the following sentences do not make sense:

“We were startled because the noise”

“Jim was fired for he lost the company millions”

What about ‘like’?

Like is a preposition, although it is often used as a conjunction in informal English. When you write formally, it is incorrect to use like as a conjunction:

“I ran today like I never ran before”

“Start out like you mean to continue”

Use as instead, which is a preposition.

The correct use of like is as follows:

“John runs like a gazelle”

“Getting him to talk is like pulling teeth”

Is ‘as’ both a preposition and a conjunction?

There are some cases where as comes before a noun, but it does not make a comparison in the way that like does. Instead, it usually indicates a role, as in the following example:

“When I was in university, I worked as a bartender”

Once you get the hang of it, knowing whether to use like or as will become second nature. As they say, it is like riding a bike.

78% of Groupon local merchants think the website’s users are stingy, according to a new poll by CM Copywriters. The poll also found that 82% of businesses are unsatisfied with levels of repeat business.

A plurality of local merchants would never work with Groupon again. Despite this, 63% profited from their deal.

CM Copywriters conducted telephone interviews with 300 US businesses between June 22nd 2011 and July 8th 2011. The poll revealed:

63% profited from their promotion

Yes 63%
No 35%
Unsure 2%

78% think Groupon users are more stingy than average customers

More 78%
Less 7%
Unsure 15%

82% unsatisfied with repeat business

Satisfied 17%
Unsatisfied 82%
Unsure 1%

49% wouldn’t do it again

Yes 45%
No 49%
Unsure 6%

Writers often struggle to know whether to use which, that or who in a sentence. Colloquial usage can often blur the lines, but the following will help you decide which of these three pronouns to use, and when.

Adjective clauses

An adjective clause can be used to modify a noun in the same way that a simple adjective does:

“The dilapidated barn stood at the corner of the dusty road”

“The barn, which had seen better days, stood at the corner of the dusty road”

Both dilapidated and which had seen better days modify barn.

Restrictive and non-restrictive clauses

There are two types of adjective clause:

• A restrictive (or essential) clause is used to restrict the meaning of the noun. The following contains a restrictive clause:

“Horses that win races are worth a lot of money”

Here, the point is that winning horses are valuable. Remove that win races and the implication is that all horses are valuable.

• A non-restrictive (or nonessential) clause provides further information, but removing the clause does not change the core meaning of the sentence. Consider the following:

“The sports car, which was shiny and red, revved its engine and sped off”

It is nice to know that the sports car was shiny and red, but if this clause were removed, the sports car would still speed off into the distance.

The basic rule

By now, you probably have guessed what the basic rule is for using which and that:

• Use that for restrictive clauses, and do not separate out the clause using commas.

• Use which for non-restrictive phrases, and use commas before and after the clause.

Otherwise identical sentences have different meanings depending on the type of clause used:

“The window, which was on the right, let a few rays of sunlight into the dingy room”

“The window that was on the right let a few rays of sunshine into the dingy room”

In the first sentence, the point is that the widow let the sunlight into the room, whereas in the second sentence the implication is that there was more than one window, and only the right-hand one let the sunlight enter.

Exceptions

Although that is supposed to be used in restrictive clauses, people use which with increasing frequency, and it is becoming more accepted. Restrictive clauses that use which are still intelligible, as in the sentence below:

“Ships which carry oil are called tankers”

Here, it is clear that not all ships are tankers, only those which carry oil.

There are still certain types of sentence where that is almost exclusively used in restrictive clauses, including those where:

• It is the subject, as in:

“It was the cat that scratched me”

• The noun is already modified by a superlative, as in:

“Hockey is the most enjoyable game that I have ever played”

• The noun being modified is anything, nothing or something, as in:

“Is there something that is bothering you?

In some cases, that is omitted entirely from restrictive clauses and this is accepted usage, as the example below shows:

“The trophy he won is on display in his office”

However, in no circumstances should you use that in a non-restrictive clause; it doesn’t make sense, as the following demonstrates:

“The lion, that had roared previously, now settled down and went to sleep”

Who

In both restrictive and non-restrictive clauses, who must be used instead of which and that when the noun being modified is a person or group of persons, as in:

“The soldiers who came into the tent had recently returned from the front lines”

“John, who had just come in to the room, looked about in disgust”

However, there is debate whether or not it is acceptable to use that in restrictive clauses where the person is not named, as in:

“The boy that did this is in very serious trouble”

Stick to these rules, and least you won’t get into trouble, unlike the poor child above!

When you write a sentence, different parts of that sentence can perform the same function. For example, you may have a list of equivalent items. When this happens, you should use the same grammatical construct for each. This is known as the rule of parallel construction.

Use articles consistently

Look at the following sentence:

“The owl and the pussycat went to sea in a beautiful pea-green boat.”

Both ‘owl’ and ‘pussycat’ are preceded by the definite article ‘the’. This is correct, unlike below:

“The owl and pussycat went to sea in a beautiful pea-green boat.”

“The owl and a pussycat went to sea in a beautiful pea-green boat.”

In the first case, ‘the’ is omitted before ‘pussycat’, which is just wrong. In the second case, it is replaced by the indefinite article ‘a’, making the owl more important than the pussycat.

Don’t mix verb forms

The same rule of parallel construction applies when using the ‘-ing’ (gerund) and ‘to’ (infinitive) forms of verbs in a list. Both of these are correct:

“I like to fish, to hunt, and to play football.”

“I like fishing, hunting, and playing football.”

On the other hand, the sentence below incorrectly mixes the gerund and infinitive forms:

“I like fishing, to hunt, and playing football.”

Apply the rule to all constructors

This same principle applies when you use other words or word combinations to form a list, such as or, both, but or either. For example, the following is wrong:

“Whenever we go to the seaside, it is either a rainy day or too cold.”

This can be fixed by rearranging the sentence:

“Whenever we go to the seaside, the day is either rainy or too cold.”

Use parallel construction globally

The rule of parallel construction is a general one. Consider the following error:

“June presented her case, the committee members asked questions, and a decision was reached by the committee.”

Here, the verb shifts from the active voice to the passive voice. The following is correct:

“June presented her case, the committee members asked questions, and the committee reached a decision.”

So there you have it. You may need lateral thinking to find good topics to write about, but you need parallel thinking once you start to write!

In English, verbs have an active voice and a passive voice. The active voice is when the subject of a sentence performs the action, whereas the passive voice is when the subject is being acted upon. For example:

“The boy threw the ball through the window”  is active.

“The window was shattered by a ball”  is passive.

The thing which carries out the action denoted by a verb is the agent of that verb. In the active voice, the agent is the subject. In the passive voice, it is the object.

Use the active voice whenever possible
The active voice is more concise, understandable and forceful. Consider the following sentences:

“James was charged by the police with having been the recipient of stolen goods”

“Elephants are believed by scientists to experience grief”

These are wordy and weak. On the other hand, the following sentences are short and strong:

“The police charged James with receiving stolen goods”

“Scientists believe that elephants grieve”

When to use the passive voice

While experienced writers generally avoid the passive voice, sometimes using it is desirable or necessary, including when:

1. There is no obvious agent

“The gates have been closed”

If you know the agent, you should use the active voice:

“Mary has closed the gates”

The agent is not the main point of emphasis

“Jazz is ignored by today’s youth”

“Today’s youth ignores jazz”

The first sentence highlights jazz, not today’s youth, and is appropriate if you are writing about jazz. On the other hand, the second is better if you are discussing young people’s musical tastes.

2. You want to introduce variety into your sentences. Do this sparingly.

Common mistakes

Here are some things to avoid:

• When using the passive voice, the subject should not imply the entire action in the sentence, as in:

“An assessment of the effects of global warming was carried out”

The verb phrase above, ‘was carried out’, is just excess baggage. Rewrite this using the verb that is equivalent to the subject:

“The effects of global warming were assessed”

• Don’t shorten a passive sentence by removing the agent:

“My childhood will always be cherished by me”

“My childhood will always be cherished”

The second sentence is ambiguous: do I cherish my childhood or do my parents? Or is it someone else?

Of course, “I will always cherish my childhood” is much better. But, you probably know that by now!

Cooper Murphy recently conducted research on iPad usage. The results are published on our website: iPad Consumer Usage Study.

Among our results, we found that 43% use the device for more than 10 hours each week. We also found that, among iPad owners, it’s their favourite way of reading news and magazine content.

For marketers, this presents an opportunity. When platforms shift, new leaders emerge.

43% use the device for more than 10 hours per week

0-2 hours 17%
2-5 hours 16%
5-10 hours 24%
10-20 hours 28%
20+ hours 15%