English usage is always evolving, but the rate of evolution seems to accelerate all the time, and careful observers will note in a wide variety of content pervasive examples of the relaxation of standards for written English. This post discusses several categories in which it appears that even professional writers often seem unaware of basic … Read more
How does your writing style rate regarding balanced use (or overuse) of parts of speech? An online test will evaluate your compositions for you. The writing handbook The Writer’s Diet: A Guide to Fit Prose has a companion website that features not only a blog (and a newsletter you can subscribe to) but also a … Read more
Adhering to the following guidance about usage, syntax, punctuation, style, and form will perceptibly improve the quality of your writing. 1. Use vivid verbs. Monitor your writing for excessive use of forms of “to be”—is, be, and their variants—and other helping verbs such as has, as well as other weak verbs like do and go, … Read more
Word choice, insertion or omission of punctuation, and syntax (arrangement of words and phrases) all affect comprehension. In each of the following sentences, one of these components of sentence construction is the source of ambiguity or confusion. Discussion of each example follows, along with a revision. 1. Our organization has sponsored AIDS/HIV walks across the … Read more
Which method of editing is the most effective one? Which content formats should be employed, and how many iterations are necessary? Ultimately, what works for the publisher is the best approach, but consider that what is most expedient is often at odds with what is best. Until a generation ago, typewritten manuscripts were edited on … Read more
Earlier this year, the Merriam-Webster website, which, along with its paper-and-ink version, is notorious for its laissez-faire approach to word usage, expressed an intriguing argument in one of its Usage Notes: Chill out about preserving the “original” meaning of words. If one were to insist that words be used only in their initial sense, one … Read more
There are many editorial strategies for making text easy to write, edit, and read. Here are a few guidelines for simplifying how your company, organization, or publication (even if it’s merely a personal blog) produces content. 1. Minimize House Style “House style” refers to treatment of specialized terminology and treatment of spelling, capitalization, numbers, or … Read more
Once upon a time, professional and amateur writers alike could count on books and publications to help guide them in writing clearly, coherently, and concisely. They knew that when they opened a book, a magazine, or a newspaper, they could generally be assured that they would find carefully crafted prose that adhered to principles of … Read more
One clear sign of a sentence that is a candidate for conciseness is the noun basis, especially when it appears in the phrase “on a/an [blank] basis.” Whenever you are tempted to write such a phrase, or you find as you review a piece of your writing that you have already done so, seek an … Read more
When writers neglect to take sufficient care in forming sentences, confusion and error can easily result. The following five sentences illustrate various ways in which the wrong word order or choice of phrasing can obfuscate meaning; discussion and a revision follows each example. 1. Various supervisors have developed their own risk assessment methodologies independently, which … Read more
The term “lean writing style” is not new to literary criticism. Dashiell Hammett is the American writer most cited as the master of it. However, the recent spate of how-to articles urging writers of all genres to hone a “lean writing style” may have more to do with the world of computing than with literature. … Read more
A few years ago, I wrote a post titled “How Long Should a Paragraph Be?” which argued that various pronouncements that dictate paragraph length (expounded for the benefit of beginning writers, who presumably are aided by the introduction of a circumscribed formula for success in composition) should be ignored in favor of a commonsense approach … Read more