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Seven Rules For Writing Just About Anything by Anthony White
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Seven Rules For Writing Just About Anything |
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Education
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Like it or not, our written words reflect upon us way longer than we would sometimes like. That's especially true in business, where email communication has supplanted many a phone conversation. As a writing coach, I work with people who love writing and those who dread it. Some of my clients are great with words but disasters when it comes to organizing their ideas. Others have tons to say if they could only bring themselves to sit down and write instead of sharpening their pencils down to stubs or revising their first page (or paragraph) until their erasers are mere nubs. Whether you write for business or for pleasure, these seven simple rules will help. 1) Just start. Don't worry about what you're saying, how it sounds or whether you've said it before. Just get the words out. There will be plenty of time to prune, re-organize and edit later. 2) Whether you're writing a business letter or a novel, create an outline so you know where you're going-you have a much better chance of getting there that way. Remember that each paragraph (or chapter) makes a single argument. And each paragraph (or chapter) needs to be linked one to the other. Think of a train. The locomotive provides the power that pulls the whole thing along. That's your lead paragraph (or chapter). Each car (or paragraph or chapter) has its own content, which is linked to the car before it and the car after it. Those links are called transitions. The caboose (or conclusion) wraps the whole thing up. 3) Opt for dynamic action verbs that make your text come alive instead of weak favorites like "to be" or "to have." Weak: There are many great deals out there. Strong: Great deals abound. Weak: The farmers were fearful that their crop would fail and their family would starve. Strong: The farmers feared the potential failure of their crops. Their families would surely starve. 4) Avoid passive sentences in favor of more vigorous sentence construction: Passive: This charming house will save you money. Active: Save money and buy this charming house now. Passive: My family's history is long, extending back to 18th century Scotland. Active: My family's long history extends back to 18th century Scotland. 5) State your position as fact. Qualifiers (such as I think, I feel, I believe, it seems to me) just weaken your argument. Qualified: We feel that this is the time to buy. Strong: This is the time to buy. Qualified: I believe that my family's story typifies the immigrant experience. Strong: My family's story typifies the immigrant experience. 6) Go big on detail and texture when writing a story-whether short or long, fiction or non-fiction. You want your reader to feel like a bug on the wall witnessing the experience you're chronicling, so write in terms of all five senses: sight, sound, feel, smell, taste. Assume that our bug has the ability to read thoughts and pinpoint feelings, and include those as well. 7) Cut the fat. Tightening your writing by eliminating all those little filler words that don't enhance meaning adds power to your text. Wordy: She was thinking about all this as she wandered along the mountain trails when she stumbled on the hut. Powerful: Lost in thought, she stumbled on the mountain hut. Though it helps to consider these rules when working on your initial draft, they'll mostly come into play during the editing phase. So put your inner editor on hold until then; otherwise you run the risk of criticism-induced writing paralysis (also known as writer's block). You'll have plenty of time to drag out your inner editor once you have a completed draft. Until then, just write! dissertation writing service
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