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Tuesday, April 14, 2009

How to Write Good

I spend a lot of time writing, both for work and for pleasure.

Actually, make that a lot of time writing.

While reviewing two articles this week, I referred back to a list of writing helps. I keep this list handy for moments when I feel that proof-reading one more sentence might drive me mad.

In the spirit of good writing and less proof-reading for me, I thought I'd share these tips and tricks with you.
  • Avoid run-on sentences they are hard to read.
  • Don't use no double negatives.
  • Reserve the apostrophe for it's proper use and omit it when its not needed.
  • Do not put statements in the negative form.
  • No sentence fragments.
  • Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
  • Avoid commas, that are not necessary.
  • If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.
  • A writer must not shift your point of view.
  • And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.
  • Don't overuse exclamation marks!!!
  • "Avoid overuse of 'quotation' "marks."'"
  • Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents.
  • Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.
  • It is incumbent on us to avoid archaisms.
  • If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
  • Steer clear of incorrect forms of verbs that have snuck in the language.
  • Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixed metaphors.
  • Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
  • Never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
  • Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
  • Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing.
  • If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, resist hyperbole.
  • Also, avoid awkward or affected alliteration.
  • Don't string too many prepositional phrases together unless you are walking through the valley of the shadow of death.
  • The adverb always follows the verb.
  • Don't verb nouns.
  • Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
  • Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; seek viable alternatives.

4 comments:

  1. I transferred your writing tips to a Word document and ran the spelling and grammar tool. It found only four mistakes. I did not accept any of the suggested changes. Then I tried to run the spelling and grammar tool again. I received the message: "Spelling and grammar check complete."

    I wonder how many people depend on that tool?

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  2. I think more people rely on that tool than we'd like to believe. I've found that I've became a sloppy typist with the autocorrect feature enabled in Word.

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  3. I can't use that tool. It irritates me. I do use spell check because I type so fast I usually transpose letters here and there. My problem is that I am not great in the English department so my grammer is not the best. I am trying to get better though.

    ReplyDelete