Thread: How to Write Good

1. Always avoid alliteration.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. Avoid cliches like the plague.
4. Employ the vernacular.
5. Eschew ampersands and abbreviations, etc.
6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
7. Parenthetical words, however, must be enclosed in commas.
8. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
9. Contractions aren't necessary.
10. Do not use a foreign word when there is an adequate English quid pro quo.
11. One should never generalize.
12. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
13. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
14. Don't be redundant; don't use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
15. It behooves you to avoid archaic expressions.
16. Avoid archaeic spellings too.
17. Understatement is always best.
18. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
19. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
20. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
21. The passive voice should not be used.
22. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
23. Don't repeat yourself, or say again what you have said before.
24. Who needs rhetorical questions?
25. Don't use commas, that, are not necessary.
26. Do not use hyperbole; not one in a million can do it effectively.
27. Never use a big word when a diminutive alternative would suffice.
28. Subject and verb always has to agree.
29. Be more or less specific.
30. Placing a comma between subject and predicate, is not correct.
31. Use youre spell chekker to avoid mispeling and to catch typograhpical errers.
32. Don't repeat yourself, or say again what you have said before.
33. Don't be redundant.
34. Use the apostrophe in it's proper place and omit it when its not needed.
35. Don't never use double negatives.
36. Poofread carefully to see if you any words out.
37. Hopefully, you will use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.
38. Eschew obfuscation.
39. No sentence fragments.
40. Don't indulge in sesquipedalian lexicological constructions.
41. A writer must not shift your point of view.
42. Don't overuse exclamation marks!!
43. Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents.
44. Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.
45. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
46. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
47. Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing.
48. Always pick on the correct idiom.
49. The adverb always follows the verb.
50. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors.
51. If you reread your work, you cn find on rereading a great deal of repetition can avoided by rereading and editing.
52. It is a definite hallmark of a clear, concise and succint writing style when the minimum number words or phrases, as strictly necessary, are employed yet the writer's point is abundantly clear and the reader is in no doubt as to the objective of the text.
53.Be consistent; standardise in punctuation and -- standardize in prose.
55. And always be sure to finish what

If you can understand the joke behind every one of that lot you're doing well.

And while we're at it, don't forget the difference between:

Lose and loose
Taut, tort and taught
affect and effect
ie, eg, and etc
adverse and averse
allude and elude
bare and bear
complement and compliment

Furthermore, I would like to state for the record there is no such word as 'agreeance'. Agreement is what you want. The word "administrate" doesn't need to exist either when "administer" already does.

Alot is really 'a lot'. Unless you mean allot. Or allotment. Or you got 'alloy' very wrong.

Gotten is just horrible.

Nothing is almost, or nearly, or very unique. Not even your Land Rover.

Bi-products probably aren't what you think they are.

You really don't mean to say 'for all intensive purposes'. It's 'to all intents and purposes'. And please avoid 'to all in tents and purposes'. If you're going to use a cliche, use it, don't torture it and us.

You don't pour over things, you pore over them. When you tip a full kettle over that's pouring.

Your Land Rover has pedals, not peddles.

If you're fazed, that's not the same as a phase.

A point may be moot, but it's probably not mute

Before, things were formerly, they may or not be properly formal.

Hear hear! you may hear, here or there, but here here? That's for dogs.

Insure, assure and ensure. You may assure your family you have ensured their possessions are insured.

Four, fore and for.

In regards to? With regards to.

Irrespective of the situation there is never a need to inflict 'irregardless' on anyone.

etc.

Originally Posted by Redback

i thort me rittin waz grate

Oh, it is Baz, it is!