Improvingwriting
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The document provides guidelines for improving writing style, including avoiding unnecessary words, using short words, writing in an everyday tone, and following proper grammar. It recommends using the active voice and concise phrasing while limiting adjectives, filler words, cliches, redundancy, and pretentious language. Readers are directed to additional online resources offering more detailed style rules and examples.
Improvingwriting
- 1. Improving Your Writing / Following the House Stylehttp://www.hollypinafore.org© Danielle Travali, 2010
- 2. What NOT to do:Don’t use too many adjectives.Don’t use filler words like “quite,” “very,” “rather,” etc. By trying to sound sophisticated, you will end up sounding silly and pretentious.There are a lot of big, flowery words in the English dictionary. I don’t know why half of them are even there. Use them sparingly. Rule: try not to use any word the average 18-year-old college student wouldn’t understand.
- 3. Oy vey…that’s cliché!Avoid clichés as much as possible. “Blue as the sky,” “dark as night,” and “happy as a clam” are examples of phrases that make writing professors roll their eyes.For the largest collection of clichés on the Web, visit http://www.clichesite.com/
- 4. Avoid the passive voiceUse only the active voice: “The girl kicked the ball” instead of “the ball was kicked by the girl.” People should always be the ones performing the action of the sentence. If you are confused, visit this site:http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/539/01/
- 5. Use short wordsYou should “prefer about to approximately, after to following, let to permit, but to however, use to utilise, make to manufacture,plant to facility,take part to participate, set up to establish, enough to sufficient, show to demonstrate and so on. Underdeveloped countries are often better described as poor. Substantive often means real or big.”Source: http://www.economist.com/research/styleGuide/index.cfm?page=673915
- 6. Avoid unnecessary wordsUse one word to replace two. Do this as often as possible. Please review “The Economist” publication’s style guide. Its editors share a list of words you don’t need to use: http://www.economist.com/research/styleGuide/index.cfm?page=673919
- 7. Write in everyday speechDon’t try to be a Ph.D writing a dissertation. Write like you’re having a conversation with your reader!You can use slang, but only occasionally, when the situation calls for it.
- 8. Don’t be redundantYou don’t need to write something like “I saw it with my own eyes.” This is redundancy and it’s actually funny if you think about it. I mean, did you see it with someone else’s eyes? No. It’s obvious that you saw whatever you saw with YOUR eyes, so you don’t need to clarify that.
- 9. Redundancy v. The Lean VersionSource: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/concise.htm
- 10. Use Proper GrammarKnow the difference between its and it’s, they’re, their and there, your and you’re.Its is a possessive (The cat licked its own fur.)It’s is a contraction, meaning it is They’re means “they are”: THEY’RE bringing their car to the shop.Their is a possessive, meaning “it belongs to them” as in “THEIR car is in the shop.”There refers to place—Their car is over THERE.
- 11. Follow AP Style when possiblehttp://www.wwu.edu/journalism/syllabi/207labmanual.htmThe link above is a guide to basic AP style, which you should follow as much as you can when writing articles for HollyPinafore.org
- 12. As always…ASK QUESTIONS IF YOU GET STUCK!