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Hey Reader,

In honor of launching my new course, Content Editing 101, in the next 24 hours, I'm sharing a full lesson from it with you today, completely free.

Whether or not you choose to buy, you opted into my newsletter and decided to spend time with me. So, I wanted to say thank you and do something in return.

Also, a quick heads up: I won't send a zillion emails during the launch, but I will send more than usual. If you don't want to receive any launch-related emails, click here.

I hope you stick around because if you want to improve your editing, this course is THE way to do that.

Without further ado, here's my free lesson from Content Editing 101 on tenses:

Tenses (and why one rules all others)

In English, there are three primary tenses—present, past, and future—each with four distinct aspects: simple, continuous, perfect, and perfect continuous.

If you do the math, this makes twelve tenses in the English language (4 x 3 = 12).

Who knew there’d be math in an editing course?!

When I went to Thailand to teach English in 2016, these were the first grammatical elements I relearned. To be honest, none of them rang a bell. It was like sitting through English class for the first time, but with a plate of Pad Thai next to me instead of a bag of Doritos.

It was a bit scary at first, I can’t lie. I felt stupid. How could I not remember any of this?

I decided to shake that feeling as fast as it came on. Who cares if I didn’t remember grammatical tenses? When have I ever needed them in my life, anyway?

I’m glad I shook the feeling because it’s hard to learn when you feel ashamed, embarrassed, or defensive. So, I gave it my all and ranked as the top student in my TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) class. It was a far cry from whatever grade I got on grammar tests in high school, that's for damn sure.

I’m telling you this for two reasons:

1. You are not stupid because you don’t remember what you learned in English class.
2. You may not think you need to know the ins and outs of tenses, but understanding them at their most basic level will make you a better writer.

In 2016, I wasn’t a writer, so I was right—I hadn’t needed this knowledge.

But a year later, I became one, and I can’t tell you how much relearning basic grammar, like tenses, gave me a leg up from day one.

What's more...

One of the biggest edits I made as Head of Content, and still make today as an editing coach, is changing the continuous to simple tense.

Let me briefly teach you the difference and explain why I make those edits (so you can, too).

Tenses 101

The simple tense demonstrates habits, regular occurrences, or commands. The action lives in a defined timeframe, e.g., “I write every evening” or “She reads news in the morning.”

The continuous tense demonstrates an ongoing or temporary action with a fuzzier timeframe. The action started at some point in the past and will end at some point in the future, e.g., “I am reading at the moment” or “He is reading a novel.” We don’t know when the reading session started or when it will end, but we know that it did start at a defined time and will end. It doesn’t go on forever.

The perfect tense has a precise end time: the present moment. We don’t know exactly when the action started, but we know it has caught up to right now. For example, “I have written three chapters so far.” Or, to get meta, “At present, you have completed approximately half of Content Editing 101.”

The perfect continuous tense refers to actions that started in the past, continued for a while, and have a connection to the present, e.g., “I have been writing online for exactly six years.”

Each tense-aspect can be applied to the present, past, and future, like so:

Quick summary in case that made your head spin:

The simple tense represents general habits or actions. The continuous tense focuses on activities that are currently happening or are temporary. The perfect tense points to finished actions still relevant to the present. And the perfect continuous tense covers actions that began in the past, may have continued for some time, and retain their significance to the current moment.

COOL. Let’s get to why the hell knowing this matters.

Why tenses matter in online writing

Most of us write online to gain an audience, build awareness for our product or service, convert followers into fans who buy, and become recognized industry experts.

The simple tense is tailor-made for bold, argumentative, persuasive writing.

AKA: online writing.

For example, “Read this book for a unique perspective” is more confident and straightforward than, “You might consider reading this book for a unique perspective.”

The former is a command. You can feel the directness. It’s confident, bold, and assured.

The latter is a suggestion that you could do something. You can feel the indirectness. It's hesitant, unassured, and lacks confidence.

It’s a subtle difference, but subtle persuasion is where online writing and content marketing shine.

Here are a few examples of where I’d edit the continuous to the simple tense:

Example 1

The original: “It allows you to present to your team, while still offering tons of context and enhancements, without them all having to be there at the same time.”

The edit: “It allows you to asynchronously share information and set context without the hassle of a real-time meeting.”

The original sentence feels longwinded and a pain to get through.

If we break it down to the nuts and bolts, it reads like so:

“You can be sharing tons of context without your team physically with you.”

It feels so indirect and never-ending, which makes sense since the continuous tense describes ongoing actions.

The edited version reads like this when we break it down:

“Present to your team without the hassle.”

It’s so much more direct and assured.

Example 2

The original: “If you’re starting out with your LinkedIn ads, start by bidding low and filling your budget out with cheap clicks as opposed to filling it quickly with expensive clicks.”

The edit: “New to LinkedIn ads? Bid low and fill your budget with cheap (rather than expensive) clicks.”

The original is a mouthful. And because it’s a continuous action, it feels like it’ll take a while to get results, even if that’s not true.

Meanwhile, “bid low” is a direct command that I can get on board with. And “fill your budget with cheap (rather than expensive) clicks” makes it sound easy and doable.

You can’t persuade people to do something if you tip-toe around your point, opinion, or unique take.

Make the simple present tense your friend.

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I hope you enjoyed that free sneak peek into my course!

I've teamed up with Rob Lennon, the AI Whisperer (and my good friend), to create a Learn → Do → Play experience with this course.

While AI is not great at content writing (yet), Rob has trained it to edit like a pro.

He's taken all my lessons and built AI bots to help you apply your learning.

So, while I didn't include it here, you'll get to paste sentences into a bot and have it tell you how to fix your tense (for instance).

It's so cool.

​If you're as excited as I am, hop on the waitlist so you don't miss the announcement (which I'll be sharing with the waitlist first).​

Catch you soon!

Erica

There's more if you want it:

1. ​Join Power Your Platform. Learn to embrace your unique point of view and build real authority on social in my free newsletter with Kasey Jones.
2. Work with me 1:1 or 1:Team: Book me for hands-on editing, coaching, or editorial consulting.

Just reply to this email to learn more about working with me.

And let me know what you think of today's issue. I read and reply to every email and welcome a chance to chat :)

Erica Schneider

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