Five Quick Tips to Improve Your Writing
Monday September 17, 2007
- Vary the length of your sentences.
In general, use short sentences to emphasize ideas. Use longer sentences to explain, define, or illustrate ideas. See Sentence Variety in Thurber's "Life and Hard Times." - Put key words and ideas at the beginning or end.
As a general rule, don't bury a main point in the middle of a sentence. To emphasize key words, place them at the beginning or (better yet) at the end. See E.B. White's New York in the 1940s. - Use active verbs.
Don't overwork forms of the verb "to be." Instead, use verbs of action and motion in the active voice. See F. Scott Fitzgerald's New York in the 1920s. - Cut the clutter.
When revising your work, eliminate unnecessary words. See Practice in Cutting the Clutter. - Read aloud when you revise.
When revising, you may hear problems (of tone, emphasis, word choice, and syntax) in your writing that you can't see. See the Revision Checklist and On Reading Aloud.
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Comments
I am a TEFL teacher in Spain and I am extremelly thankful to R. Nordquist for his useful tips on how to enhance writing skills. I was looking for articles which i could use for my classes on Writing for advanced students and I think of the over two million webpages from my google result on “tips to improve your writing” this so far, has been the best one, the one which saved me from trying to go on looking in this vast ocean of data. Thanks and congratulations for your coherence at following all the musts of clear, useful writing!!
Thank you for your kind words, Maria. I hope that you’ll continue to find useful articles at About Grammar & Composition.
My best to you and your students.
Richard