Top Writing Tips To Remember

A brief post today, just looking at a simple checklist you can use to improve the quality of your writing. Analyzing all there research papers for sale we have come to the following list:

• Keep to the principle of one idea per sentence to produce simple sentences, not complex ones with subordinate clauses.
• Write short sentences of about 20 words. However, you can vary the length for interest.
• Sentences should be linked – use “signpost language”, (suitable connecting words that link the sentences together in a logical way).
• Check pronouns. It should be clear to which noun the pronoun relates.
• Do not overuse the passive.
• Rewrite sentences you are not happy with rather than try to modify them.
• Check that the sentences have the meaning you intended. Remove any ambiguities.
• Identify and avoid wordiness, jargon, circumlocution, clichés and slang.
• Check the word order.
• Check tenses, prepositions, subject/verb agreements, spelling and punctuation.

Creative Writing Tips: Proximity

In theory, English is a simple language; subject-verb-object with adjectives before the noun and adverbs wherever they make most sense! English does not have all of the complexity of genders of many languages, or of tenses.
Then we complicate it with all sorts of nuances that sometimes confuse even the native speaker – what hope for those communicating in English when it is not their mother tongue
Part of the purpose of this site is to help people avoid inadvertently causing offense by either using the wrong words, or getting the word sequence wrong.

In addition, do not worry – native speakers make some very interesting mistakes. The Civil Service in the UK once sent out a memo to all staff about the potential health threat to women’s fertility emanating from the radiation from VDU screens. The memo read” This memo will be of interest to those women who are pregnant, or who wish to become pregnant whilst at work.” We know what they meant, but that was not quite it!
Another recent extract from a National Newspaper in the UK reported that “Yesterday, a meeting took place about the harassment of sheep in the secretary of state’s office” The keyword here is “proximity”. Make sure that if you have a sub clause that qualifies the subject of the sentence, that you place it by the subject and not the object!

Creative Writing Tips: Avoid Redundancy

Here is a writing tip that will help you to prune unwanted words; avoid redundancy! There are two major categories of redundant words to look out for: redundant pairs and redundant categories. In both cases, they are usually superfluous and it is best to leave them out.
Tautologies
Some pairs of words imply each other. Finish implies complete, so the phrase completely finish is redundant in most cases. So are many other pairs of words:

• dark-haired brunette
• sad misfortune
• dry desert
• dilapidated ruins
• 2 p.m. in the afternoon
• necessary requirement

A related expression that is illogical more than it is redundant is “very unique”. Since “unique” means “one of a kind”, adding modifiers of degree such as “very”, “so”, “especially”, “somewhat”, “extremely”, is illogical. “One-of-a-kind-ness” has no gradations; something is either unique or it is not.
Example:

• • Redundant: This is the last and final call for passengers on flight 101
  • Concise: This is the final call for passengers on flight 101

Redundant Categories

Particular words imply their categories; therefore, we do not state both. We know that round is a shape, that being honest is about a character, that shiny is an appearance.
Example:

• • • Redundant: During that time, developing countries overtook industrialized countries in the production of a certain number of goods of poor quality and low cost
    • Concise: During that period, developing countries overtook industrialized countries in the production of a number of cheap, poor quality goods

Hope that these story writing tips have helped and you will use them in your next article/story.