Feb 10, 2016 | Communication, Editing, Effective Writing, Punctuation and Grammar
Avoid the widespread tendency to capitalize common nouns. Not everything has an official, formal name, but many writers think that if it’s something special, it should be upper case. Writers routinely uppercase names of committees, projects, departments, titles...
Jan 27, 2016 | Editing, Effective Writing
The writing craft requires that you think like both a writer and an editor because at the end of the drafting process, the two tasks are intertwined. Writing has three phases: drafting, revising, where you make changes and rewrite, and then editing. Many people think...
Jan 22, 2014 | Editing, Effective Writing
The word “that” is often unnecessary, but not always. Be sure you don’t cause readers to stumble. “Get rid of ‘that’; you don’t need it” is common advice, but as is often true with nuggets of wisdom about writing, it...
Nov 15, 2012 | Editing, Effective Writing
We are familiar with the subject-verb-object sentence structure, but a series of consecutive sentences constructed that way is boring to read. Add a little variety to make the writing more lively and more emphatic. Part of what distinguishes good writing is that...
Nov 13, 2012 | Editing, Effective Writing
Clarity is always the preeminent concern when writing, and the most important factors that determine a clear sentence are word choice, sentence structure, and punctuation. People often associate clarity with sentence length, but a 55-word sentence can be immediately...