Friday, July 03, 2009

The Complete Rules of Good Writing

The English language is a complex and ever-changing beast, rife with stylistic eccentricities and open to misinterpretation on many levels. Little wonder, then that for every expert English speaker, there are thousands who find themselves falling down grammatical trapdoors, tripping up over puzzling punctuation and spelling words with diabolical inaccuracy. Here is how you can avoid them:




















A writer should not annoy half of his readers by using gender-specific language.

Always finish what you star.


Avoid overuse of ampersands & abbreviations etc.
 

Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
 

Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
 

Avoid clichés like the plague- they’re so old hat.
 

Be more-or-less specific.
 

Consult the dictionary frequently to avoid mispeling
 

Comparisons are as bad as clichés.
 

Contractions aren’t necessary.
 

Do not use, unnecessary, commas.
 

Do not use a foreign word when there is an adequate English quid pro quo.
 

Do not use hyperbole; not even one in a million can do it effectively.
 

Don’t repeat yourself and avoid being repetitive.
 

Don’t use no double negatives. The double negative is a no-no.
 

Don’t be redundant; don’t use more words than necessary; it’s highly superfluous.
 

Don’t overuse exclamation marks!!!!
 

Don’t repeat yourself, or say again what you have said before.
 

Don’t use unattributed quotations.’
 

Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, ‘I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.’
 

Eschew obfuscation.
 

Exaggeration is a million times worse than understatement.
 

Hopefully, you will use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.
 

If you reread and reread your work and reread it again you will weed out the weeds of repetition.
 

It is recommended that measures should be taken to ensure that the length of sentences is not excessive and that the complexity of said sentences is reduced.
 

Never use a big word where a diminutive alternative would suffice.
 

One should never generalize.
 

One-word sentences? Eliminate. Always!
 

Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
 

Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
 

Refrain from being indirect.
 

Subject and verb always has to agree.
 

Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixed metaphors.
 

Understatement is always the best by far.
 

Who needs rhetorical questions?
 

You shalt avoid archaic language.