Name your
subject.
By Adam Frick · Illustrated draftWho has to check the evidence?
An instruction can announce that checking the evidence matters without telling anyone to do the checking. Who should act on that message: you, the editor or the whole team? I would rather name the responsible person than leave an important job floating between colleagues. In the examples below, the revision brings that responsibility into view. The extra directness is useful only when the named person really has the job.
See the supporting references.Compare the announcement with the action.
Bring the subject forward.
Constructed teaching exampleThere are several obstacles that prevent completion.
Several obstacles prevent completion.
Name the responsibility.
Constructed teaching exampleIt is important to check the evidence.
Writers must check the evidence.
Name the event.
Constructed teaching exampleThe committee postponed the meeting. It delayed the decision.
The committee postponed the meeting. The postponement delayed the decision.
Directness can change the instruction.
I prefer a named subject because I want to know who acts and what happens. But replacing a general statement of importance with a duty assigned to writers adds a requirement. If you lack the authority or evidence for that requirement, the firmer sentence misrepresents the situation. The British Council accepts dummy subjects as grammatical English; my objection concerns avoidable vagueness, not an error in every such opening.
References and evidence
Read the evidence and its limits.
The British Council’s grammar reference on dummy subjects[1] explains conventional uses of both target words. Both target words can appear in grammatical English. My objection concerns the work the reader has to do and the information the writer has postponed or left unnamed.