Quick Writing Tip: “Who” Rules (and some bonus points)
This isn’t a personal attack on anybody.
I repeat: This is not a personal attack on anybody. However, after a week of zero-to-very-little sleep, I’d like to take a moment to help clarify the “who” rules because five of the last six papers I’ve proofread had these problems. Hopefully, this will save us all some time when I’m proofreading your papers. (And don’t get me wrong, I’m more than happy to proofread your papers. I’m more than happy to read anything not public health related at this point. Also, I know you’re probably just as sleep deprived as I am and a lot of these errors might just be from lack of sleep.)
Who vs Whom
Who and whom are both pronouns (like s/he and him)(1). That’s how you need to think of them. Pronouns. The difference is in subject or object form.
Who is a “subject” pronoun. That’s a fancy way of saying who always does the action in a sentence. Who is going to learn from this blog post? Who can always be replaced with (its gender-specific counterpart) she or he(2). He is going to learn from this blog post? Get it? He is the noun that is going. He is doing something in this sentence.
Whom is an “object” pronoun. That’s a fancy way of saying “whom” always gets an action. To whom it may concern. In this case it is the noun that may concern and whom is the word that receives the action (may concern, in this case). It is doing the action and whom is getting the action.
The general rule is this: if you can reword it so that he, she, or they works, it should be who. If him, her, or them works, it should be whom. For example, if I reworded the last one (To Whom It May Concern.) and replaced the whom, I could get It may concern him/her/them but I could never get It may concern he/she/they. See? Because he/she/they would never work, we know it is not To who it may concern.
Who’s vs Whose
This one is easier… Who’s (like it’s) is always a contraction of who is (or it is). Whose (like its) is always the possessive. For example, Who’s listening to me right now? and Whose book is that? The general absolute rule is that the apostrophe is used for indicating a contraction not possession in the case of who (and it, her, or their as well).(3)
Bonus Points
There is a huge difference between a 10% decrease and a 10 percentage point decrease. Huge. Know the difference in your results. Cannot say this enough.
Avoid “slash” phrases. For example, his/her or and/or. If you wouldn’t verbally say it to your professor, don’t write it in a paper you’re giving them. Rephrase, rephrase, rephrase. His/her should be changed to one, the reader, an observer, the participant, or something else gender neutral. That said, gender is not your enemy and can often make sentences clearer. Such as, The researcher told her participant to stop chewing his gum. Here, the researcher is obviously female, the participant is obviously male, and the gum he is chewing is obviously his own. Speaking of obviously…
Be very careful with literally, obviously, and clearly. Literally should mean literally. Not figuratively. Not sort-of-ish-ly. It should mean that it actually happened. If somebody literally crapped their pants when they heard the news, there should have been a stain. And while things may be obvious or clear to you, unless you’ve made your point, presented your evidence, and you’re in the process of closing out the paper (last four lines), you clearly obviously probably should avoid using those words.
I’ve already gone over affect and effect. Apparently, a lot of you didn’t read it.
It might be technically ok, but if you’re going through the grammatical trouble of using dashes in your sentences–a punctuation I’m quite fond of–don’t put spaces before or after the dashes. Stylistically, it just looks broken and discombobulated. No spaces gives a sense of a coherent idea with a tangential (but related) point. (Also, em dashes look prettier than en dashes.)
Finally, let me reiterate that I am more than happy to read your final papers because I know I must have made you all read dozens of mine. I’m just saying… you’re busy, I’m busy. These are common errors. We could both save a lot of time.
Footnotes:
Isn’t there a place for “slash” phrases? For example, “A writer should know his or her weaknesses.” That’s how I would verbally say it as well.