Giving credit

There has been plenty of back-and-forth lately over Barack Obama's use of lines originally delivered from his pal and adviser Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick. I'm not going to offer my opinion regarding this campaign season dust-up, but it does raise the question of how and when you credit others' work or ideas in your writing.

The rule we learned in college was that in written works you must acknowledge another's ideas and words in the body of your text and in footnotes or endnotes and through a bibliographic citation. In the world of business writing, those rules don't seem that fixed. But certainly the concept of crediting others remains.

As a general guideline, the closer you can adhere to the formality of footnotes and citations, the better. How close you need to stick with these rules depends a lot on the type of communication you're assembling. Case studies and white papers should be thoroughly annotated with regard to sources. The same probably would hold for formal reports and proposals. As for memos and e-mails, I say forego footnotes and bibliographic citations, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't credit your source. Just slip the credit smoothly into the copy itself using wording like "according to .....:" or "In his 'Tactics' article 'Journalists get Web 2.0: Do you?' Mike Neumeier says ...."

The idea is to not only give credit but to equip your readers with enough information that they can find the source material themselves if they wish.

There is also a practical advantage to detailing your sources in what you write: It forces you to take a hard look at them. Knowing that you'll be identifying your sources and that your readers will be judging their appropriateness makes you more likely to use only the most reliable ones.

Let it be written, let it be said

In this month's issue of Tactics, British business journalists Stuart Crainer and Des Dearlove are quoted as saying, "Being able to write effectively and persuasively – whether creating a business plan, e-mail, report, appraisal or positioning statement – is a core executive skill."

I agree. In fact, that statement should be treated as holy writ and nailed over the entrance of every business, law, medical and engineering school in the nation. Writing effectively represents more than communication -- which is significant -- but it also forces us to think. Sloppy writing often results not just from poor technical skills but the fuzzy thinking it masks.

Yet, despite the importance of writing, it's often treated as an afterthought in many professional training programs. If I were king, no one would venture out of college, regardless of their field, until he or she had demonstrated an ability to communicate effectively with words.

If you've established yourself as a capable writer, congratulations; you can probably attest to the difference it has made in your career and in your contributions to your business or organization. If you haven't earned your writing chops yet, I'd urge you to do so. It's not as hard as you might think, and I can promise you it will be one of your best career moves ever.

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Subject to error

Knowing what form of a verb to mate with a subject isn't always simple. In a straightforward construction like, "The books are on the shelf" it's uncomplicated. Our subject, "books" is obviously plural, so we'd want to use the plural verb "are."

But what about this one: "The CEO, along with several other executives, is/are traveling today." If you said "are," you're wrong. But don't sulk. It's a common mistake. The error lies in thinking you have a multi-part, or compound, subject consisting of the CEO and the other executives. But actually, the subject is limited to the CEO, which is singular and takes the singular verb "is."

The rule to remember is that phrases such as "along with" and "in addition to" are used to shoehorn additional information into a sentence. They're not part of the subject, though, so don't let them fool you into choosing a plural verb when you want its singular cousin.

Another trap lurks when you have subjects that define units like money, measurement and diseases. These subjects take a singular verb, as in:

-- Three million dollars is all he was willing to pay.

-- Four thousand feet of road has been laid.

-- Mumps is a disease that threatens many children.

Avoiding subject-verb agreement errors not only requires knowing the special rules that apply, but being able to strip a sentence down to its main subject and main verb, which makes solving the puzzle easier. Good luck.