Use These Four Tips to Improve Your Writing Fast

Guest post by Meryl K. Evans

The valet pulled up in my car. I thanked him, tipped him and entered my car. I noticed both turn signals were blinking. What’s up? It took me a minute to realize the valet had turned on the hazard lights. I didn’t even remember if I had ever used them in this car.

I touched every switch, button and stick searching for the toggle. Sure, I could dig for the instruction manual in the glove compartment, but I didn’t want to hold up the folks behind me. So I asked a nearby valet for help. Click. She pushed the button with the hazard icon above the touchscreen display. Color me embarrassed.

Despite this, I told my husband what happened. He said many people don’t know where to find the hazard light switch because there was no standard location for it. Well, I won’t forget next time.

If I read anything I wrote from five years ago, I flinch. I’m a better writer than I was five years ago. And I hope I’m better five years from now. Doing lots of reading and writing helped me grow as a writer.

Unlike with the hazard lights, I’ll pick up an instruction manual for writing to learn a few tricks. This would be any book on writing. The first memorable one I read was William Zinsser’s “On Writing Well.” Within 15 pages, I learned these four tips, which boosted my writing.

Why limit to four tips? Many articles provide a long list of tips. It’s so overwhelming that you don’t bother trying any. Keep it simple. Four is doable. And you can use them right now. Learn a handful of writing tricks at a time. Know them and nurture them. They’ll become a habit.

Trade Five Dollar Words for Cheap Ones

The first advice is to simplify. Zinsser covers it in one sentence: “Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that carries the same meaning that’s already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what — these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence.”

One sentence taught me to swap fancy words for simple ones, cut words ending in -ly and don’t be passive aggressive. Why opt for the snooty “utilize” when you can use the effortless “use?” And who needs the mind-numbing “numerous” when the four-lettered “many” works? Here, the Thesaurus is your friend.

Cut Very Unnecessary Words

Why not get to the point by cutting the underlined words? I blame the search engine optimization. People say online content needs to be more than 1,000 words for SEO’s sake. They believe long content earns more love from search engines.

Anxious to reach the word count goal, writers add a bunch of words especially qualifiers and adverbs, throw in statistics and amend sentences to plug in key phrases until it fits.

Do we need “very” to underscore how much we need to drop needless words? We’ve used “very,” “so” and “really” so often that these words have lost power.

Split Long Sentences to Create Two Shorter Ones for a Crisper Read

Granted, the quote from Zinsser runs long. But it packs a punch. If he had replaced commas with periods, how would it affect the sentence?

I’ve edited articles where an entire paragraph contained one sentence. For these, I convert the long sentence into two or three sentences. This breaks multiple thoughts into a single thought for each. It improves readability and clarity.

Omit Redundant Words

Take a look at this list and see how you can make them better.

• Add a new.
• In order to.
• Overused cliché.
• Past history.
• Period of time.
• Plan ahead.
• Straight to the point.
• Tall skyscraper.
• Thanks in advance.

I applied these tips to my writing as quickly as I learned where to find the hazard lights button. Next time I crack the car’s user manual, I’ll glean two or three tips. Those will join these three plus the many others I’ve discovered since I started driving my car. In a year or two, the new knowledge will help me improve this article.

Keep reading and keep writing. The bettering will follow. Oh, and be sure to find your hazard lights now before you need to know how.

Share your writing tip in the comments.

About the Author

Meryl K. Evans, Content Maven, writes a variety of content and helps her clients with their content marketing needs. A native Texan, Meryl lives a heartbeat north of Dallas in Plano, Texas with her husband and three kiddos. Y’all can visit her online home at www.meryl.net.

3 Dating Tips You Can Steal From “Quiet”

Dating is tough for a lot of people. For introverts living in an extroversion-dominant society, the dating pool can be even more difficult to navigate. However, some of the powerful lessons from the landmark book Quiet:The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking can be helpful not only for coping with western culture generally but also for getting more value from dating.

What Is Quiet?

In Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, Susan Cain explains how western society has come to favor an ideal of one spectrum of personality: extroversion. This “extroverted ideal,” which Cain argues permeates our culture, emphasizes that a person’s highest form of self should be outgoing, risk-friendly, highly collaborative, action-oriented, and effervescently social, among other things. In contrast, Cain argues that introverts’ strengths and contributions have been overlooked or even denied because they embody traits like caution, reticence, contemplativeness, focus, and preference to work solo, which have historically been devalued by society.

How Can It Help You in Dating?

1 Understand Your Needs

The most important step in finding greater fulfillment as an introvert is to take time to truly understand your own needs. In environments that have been traditionally dominated by extroverted values (most education systems and business spaces), introverts often act as what Cain calls “psuedo-extroverts.” Basically, this means introverts learn to adopt extroverted tendencies to cope and succeed in life. Sometimes they are so successful that they convince others—or even themselves—that they are extroverts.

This doesn’t help you at all when it comes to finding a partner, however. In that arena it pays off more to be true to yourself. So, it’s important to take some time to remove your “psuedo-extrovert” mask and get in touch with your introverted heart. Understand how much social interaction you can handle, what kinds of activities leave you feeling recharged, and how often you need them.

2 Set Appropriate Expectations When Dating Other Temperaments

Once you know what you need and under which circumstances, you can begin to fit those pieces into the needs of prospective partners. This is sometimes easier said than done. If you, for example, find yourself attracted to someone with a different temperament, your particular need for isolation and quiet in the evenings can clash with their need for activity and stimulation. So, what do you do? Essentially, it comes down to communication. Letting prospective partners know up front and in real-time what you are comfortable with will help you get more satisfaction out of dating in general and will help you filter out partners that aren’t an ideal fit in the long run.

3 Practice Communicating Your Preferences

However, it can be difficult to tell someone you like that this trendy (read busy) bar that they are crazy about makes you want to crawl into a (quiet) hole for an entire Saturday. Rather than toughing it out but secretly feeling uncomfortable and therefore not representing your best self, try communicating what it is that is particularly difficult for you, e.g., “This place has a lot going on and it’s hard to talk.” This is when a bit of practice comes in handy.

Asserting introverted needs in an extroverted space is uncomfortable—at least at first—but by identifying what you need to be fulfilled, you can begin asking for or making these needs known in less high-stakes situations than your next date. That is, practice asking the waiter to turn off the television or turn down the music. Practice asking your friends to go someplace calmer. Practice telling your co-worker who jumps from task to task that you need some time to get organized and plan. Practice telling your family that they should go out without you and that you’ll be fine at home alone for the night. The more you voice your needs in everyday scenarios, the easier it will be for you to find the necessary words when you need to communicate with a date.

What experiences have you had with dating as in introvert? What communication tips would you add?

Stay Away From These 5 Cliché Endings

Writing a book is difficult, but trying to pick an ending that is both impactful and wraps the plot up beautifully is even more difficult. Beginning your book is important, but ending it can be equally so. Relying on clichés won’t get the job done. As an author, you’ll only leave your readers feeling disappointed and dissatisfied.

Make sure to stay away from these five cliché endings:

The Happily Ever After

What It Is: All of the characters in your book live happily ever, with no hardships to bear. You’ll find the hero in this ending has defeated everyone and all of the plot twists you’ve worked so hard to write have been tied up nicely — but they’re also usually tied up very unrealistically.

Why to Avoid It: Life doesn’t necessarily end happily ever after, which makes this type of ending feel disingenuous. You want your readers to feel enthralled with your book so that they’ll want to buy more from your library or even read the same book again. Real people always have troubles, so make sure that your book stays in realm of realism.

The Drawn-out Dream

What It Is: The drawn-out dream ending is a cliché that usually has the main character waking up safe and sound in their bed, having realized that the entire plot up until that point has just been a dream.

Why to Avoid It: This type of ending typically annoys readers, who feel that the author has copped out. A book should be emotional to everyone involved, and an author who uses this ending seems to betray readers’ trust and cheapen the deep emotions that person has felt throughout the book.

The Killing Hero

What It Is: This is the cliché ending where the hero gets incredibly strong or lucky and kills off everything that ever stood in his or her way. He either accomplishes this task himself, or he is instrumental in orchestrating a plan that saves the world.

Why to Avoid It: This ending is just overdone, making it one of the top clichés no one wants to see when they finish a book. Authors need to avoid this ending because it’s just not realistic. It’s pretty anti-climactic and leaves the reader feeling excited for a little while, but that the book sizzled out overall. This ending just doesn’t engage the reader.

The Guilty Hero’s Monologue

What It Is: This cliché ending is where the hero finally defeats the bad guy or force, but you get to hear his internal thoughts of regret or remorse. This monologue is supposed to show the character’s guilt at what he’s had to do, and how this is eating away at him (or her). Even though the ending is happy, our hero must now live with all the blood and sins on his hands.

Why to Avoid It: In general, writers should strive to show, not tell, readers what is happening in the book. By strongarming readers into feeling specific, manufactured emotions, you are taking away their freedom to experience the novel in a way that is reflective of their background and experiences. Readers feel like they are being led to specific conclusions, and not many enjoy the feeling of an author holding their hand throughout a book — especially the ending.

The Lover’s Life

What It Is: In the lover’s life cliché ending, you’ll find that the end of your novel involves the main character falling in love, for an unexplained and often random reason, and then living happily ever after. It’s a twist that shows that true love makes the world go ‘round and that all that happened throughout the course of the book was worth it.

Why to Avoid It: Again, unrealistic endings tend to annoy readers. If a love interest is too sudden, it isn’t all that real. If it is unexplained, it leaves your characters lacking depth. The truth is that not everyone falls in love and lives happily ever after. The best endings are unique, seemingly realistic, and really make your readers think.

So the next time you are tempted to end your book with an easy, clichéd ending, don’t. Set the text aside, brainstorm some unique possibilities, and pick up your manuscript again when you have a more interesting picture of what could be.

Watch Your Language in Corporate Emails

We are “devolving” into lackadaisical proofreaders.

Even senior management and professionals with advanced degrees and experience no longer show the stamina or desire to ensure that their written words convey exactly what they are meant to–and our carelessness is coming to a head.

This is compounded by the fact that, more than ever, human beings are being judged on word choice. In large part, this is a result of our increasing reliance on written communication to conduct both business and personal relationships.

When writing for a specific purpose–whether it’s personal or professional–think about these three tips before you hit “send.”

Watch Your Tone

In written communication, it is especially important to watch your tone. For example, short replies to emails (sure, fine, ok, etc.) may come across as abrupt or angry. Excessive use of punctuation or CAPS LOCK could also suggest excitement–with both positive and negative connotations.

Ensure that every email you send in a professional environment is purposeful and that it includes relevant and actionable information. CAPS LOCK is rarely appropriate, and multiple exclamation points or question marks may send readers the wrong message. Wasn’t it Mark Twain who tried to explain that exclamation points should be used ever so sparingly (as in shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater), or omitted from one’s work entirely?

Proofread!

Aside from watching your tone, here are some proofreading tips that can help you to avoid potentially damaging emails:

• Read your email out loud. Even middle school students are taught this strategy. It’s an easy way to catch your mistakes, i.e., typos, and tone down or polish your language.
• Check for clarity. Is your meaning clear? Does your word choice accurately reflect your feelings or point of view? Don’t write “Call me at once,” if you mean “Please contact me at your earliest convenience. This deal’s important, Joe. Thanks.”
• Check for fluency. Newspapers are typically written at a fifth- or sixth-grade level. Writing at a sixth-grade level doesn’t necessarily mean you write like a sixth-grader; it just means that a sixth-grader would be able to comprehend what you’ve written. It also means that adult readers will be able to quickly and easily absorb what you’re trying to tell them.
• Organize your thoughts. Does your argument unfold intelligently? Is your word choice persuasive? If you are drafting several paragraphs, do you use a topic sentence for each one and include evidence to support it?
• Elaborate. Have you explained your position fully? Or will the reader have lingering questions?
• Proof for mechanics. Check your capitalization, punctuation, grammar, and syntax (the order of the words in your sentence). For gosh sakes, get yourself a grammar book if you don’t have one already, and keep it at your elbow. Writing crisp emails makes you shine. Lean on the latest edition of Strunk & White or the AP Stylebook for support. Either will do.

Strain Your Brain: Conclude with a Powerful Thought

As any great author will advise, your last line should sing. Before writing it, ask yourself, “What do I want to leave the reader thinking?” The answer to that question is the last line itself.

Q&A with Martha Brockenbrough, Founder of National Grammar Day

Martha Brockenbrough is the founder of National Grammar Day and author of The Game of Love and Death, which comes out April 28 and has received starred reviews from Kirkus Books and Publishers Weekly. Martha recently spoke with the Grammarly team to provide some insight into National Grammar Day and to share her perspective on language.

Grammarly: You established National Grammar Day in 2008. When did you realize that such a holiday was necessary?

Martha: “Necessary” might not be the first word I’d choose. Food, water, love, underpants. All of these are necessary things. But I knew National Grammar Day would be a lot of fun. Fun is necessary, too, and as soon as I learned the holiday did not yet exist, I set about creating it. I was inspired by the high school students I was teaching at the time. They needed a bit of help with their grammar, and I wanted to make the learning experience lively and positive. Everyone can probably remember that teacher who made grammar seem difficult or unpleasant. I wanted to show my students the fun they could have with language. They more they knew about how it worked, the more they could do, much in the same way you play better basketball when you know all of the rules.

Speaking of rules: Much has been said about the fact that many so-called rules in our language aren’t. That’s quite true. But it doesn’t mean people don’t have certain expectations about the grammar we use. Hiring managers, potential dates: People will judge you if your grammar is non-standard, just as they will judge you for wearing a Speedo to a black-tie event (even with a black tie, which would be the worst).

G: What is your biggest grammar pet peeve?

M: I try not to keep too many pet peeves. That said, every time I see “your” instead of “you’re,” my soul shrivels a little more.

G: Is there a grammar rule you don’t mind bending/breaking?

M: There are plenty of so-called “rules” that really and truly aren’t. It’s fine, for example, to begin a sentence with a conjunction. You probably don’t want to do this a lot, because it makes your writing sound choppy. But it’s perfectly fine style. Same goes for ending a sentence with a preposition.

As a novelist, though, I routinely and purposefully bend the language as many ways as I possibly can to create memorable characters who feel authentic. All we have with novels are words, and out of this, we create not only worlds, but all of their inhabitants. Books breathe, in many cases, because of the artful bending of words, punctuation, and expectations. Mark Twain, an absolute genius with language (and a proponent of simplified spelling), depended utterly on making rubber out of rules. Imagine how awful it would be if someone standardized the grammar in Huckleberry Finn. That would be like putting a tasteful blouse on the Venus de Milo.

Again, it’s about context. If you’re applying for a job with the Queen, spray the starch and follow the most formal conventions. If you’re doing something else, then do whatever it takes to do it well.

G: Oxford Comma, yes or no?

M: It depends. I write for a variety of publications. Some follow Associated Press Style, which is a serial comma killer.

Some don’t. When I write books, for example, I use the Oxford comma.

If I were in charge of the world, I suppose I’d urge use of the Oxford comma. It’s easy to point out cases where confusion arises without it. My favorite is the one that says, “We invited the strippers, JFK, and Stalin.” This is not the same as “We invited the strippers, JFK and Stalin.” (For the record, I would pay many folded single dollar bills to watch JFK and Stalin strip together.) What’s more, we no longer live in an age where we’re communicating via telegraph, so we don’t need conserve characters in quite the same way we used to, except on Twitter.

That said, the opposite confusion can sometimes arise. Consider this: “For my sister, an orangutan, and Jerome…” It’s unclear whether the speaker’s sister is an orangutan.

This is why you have to pay attention to every sentence you write. Communicating what you mean in a way that other people can understand is the goal. (That and inventing time travel so we can all catch that hot Cold War stripper act.)

G: Why is good grammar important? Isn’t it enough that we all “kind of” understand each other?

M: Tell that to the person who wrote the contract between Rogers Communication and Atlantic Canada. One rogue comma ended up costing Rogers something like $1 million a year. Most of us won’t be in a situation like this, but any time you write a letter, a personal ad, a job application, a Facebook status post, or even a tweet, you’re putting yourself into the world for all to judge and potentially misunderstand. Just as you wouldn’t want to go outside with your pants only “kind of” zipped, you want to give yourself the best chance of making whatever connection you seek. It saves all sorts of heartache and embarrassment, not to mention the occasional heap of cash.

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Thank you, Martha! Happy National Grammar Day.

Curious to know what kind of grammar nerd you are? Take Grammarly’s quiz in honor of National Grammar Day.

Realise or Realize?

Realise and realize are different spellings of the same word, and they can be used interchangeably. Both are common throughout the English-speaking world, though in different areas. Realize is preferred in American and Canadian English, while realise is preferred outside North America.

You can find more details about these spelling differences below.

Realise or Realize—Which Should I Use?

People associate a lot of things with British culture—one of them is how different British English is from American English, spelling included. Let’s compare realise and realize.

Consider your audience. For American readers, the -ize ending is probably the way to go. While both endings might be correct according to your dictionary of choice, you could unnecessarily alienate your audience if you insist on using -ise. Elsewhere, preferences might not be as strong, but they might view -ize as an American spelling. What is important is that you are consistent. For example, if you decide to go with realize, you should use the -ize ending for all verbs that can be spelled with either -ize or -ise. By doing so, you will minimize the risk of someone thinking you’ve made a mistake.

The -ise ending is actually newer than the -ize ending. In Britain and other countries, it became popular after 1875, when it began appearing in news articles. However, the -ise ending didn’t catch on in the United States or in British science periodicals and professional journals. For that reason, you will see both verb endings in British literature.

Oxford University Press, a British publisher, prefer to use the -ize ending for words that derive from the Greek suffix -izo. Doing so reflects the origins of verbs and nouns, such as realization, organization, and privatization. An -ise ending could erroneously suggest that the verbs derive from the French verbs réaliser, organiser, or privatiser. That’s not to say that Oxford style always condemns -ise endings. To illustrate, the -ise of televise doesn’t have a Greek origin, so that -ise ending is A-okay.

Examples

People do not seem to realise that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

We’re living in science fiction, but we don’t realize it.

Terry Pratchett

Adding this up, Woolworths could realise up to $1bn on the sale.

The Australian

Worse than not realizing the dreams of your youth would be to have been young and never dreamed at all.

Jean Genet

Which do you prefer—realise or realize? Will you choose the spelling most popular where you live?

Q&A with Grammar Girl, Mignon Fogarty

Mignon Fogarty is the founder the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network, the creator of of the Grammar Girl website (one of Writer’s Digest’s 101 Best Websites for Writers in 2012, 2013, and 2014), and the creator and host of the Grammar Girl podcast (Best Education Podcast in the 2012 and 2013 Podcast Awards). 

The Grammarly team recently chatted with Mignon about grammar, language, and National Grammar Day (March 4).

Grammarly: How did you become such a recognized grammar expert?

Grammar Girl: I’m not certain how it happened. My first Grammar Girl project was the podcast, but when it launched, it was just a hobby and I was working full time, so I wasn’t watching the traffic closely. Within a few weeks it was #2 in all of podcasting at iTunes and the success took me by surprise. Four months after the podcast launched, the Wall Street Journal picked the Grammar Girl website as their pick of the day, and I started getting book-deal offers and eventually partnered with Macmillan to write Grammar Girl books and to manage and expand the Quick and Dirty Tips network, of which Grammar Girl is a part.

Since the beginning, my readers and listeners have been wonderfully enthusiastic and supportive. The success of Grammar Girl is all because of them. Early on, I got a lot of e-mail messages from listeners telling me how much they loved the show and that they had shared it with all of their friends.

I also like to think that I’m recognized as an expert because I thoroughly research every topic I cover. I see a lot of people commenting online about what they think are grammar rules, but they’re going on their memory or what they learned in grade school, and they’re often incorrect. Readers and listeners learn that they can trust that I have looked up the rules and history of a topic and that I’m not just spouting my own opinions. In fact, I so diligently avoid inserting my opinion that at times my book editors have had to remind me that sometimes people actually do want to know what I think.

Grammarly: What is your biggest grammar pet peeve?

Grammar Girl: After years of answering people’s questions about grammar, seeing how they struggle, and writing about it, I don’t really have any pet peeves. The more research I do, the more I discover that many hard-and-fast rules are just consensus opinions or suggestions, such as the “rules” about splitting infinitives or that using passive voice is always wrong. I guess it mildly annoys me when I see words capitalized that shouldn’t be, but I don’t get too worked up about it.

Grammarly: Is there a grammar rule you don’t mind bending/breaking?

Grammar Girl: I can’t think of any hard-and-fast rules that I would break, but because the articles on my website are also the scripts to my audio podcasts, I write them in an informal, conversational style. For example, I often start sentences with conjunctions and use contractions. Those things aren’t wrong, but sometimes people think they are, and it is definitely a casual writing style.

Grammarly: Oxford Comma, yes or no?

Grammar Girl: My Twitter fan @ravishlydotcom asked me this question in December. I tend to favor the Oxford comma because it makes things more clear and avoids the rare potential ambiguities.

Grammarly: Why is good grammar important? Isn’t it enough that we all “kind of” understand each other?

Grammar Girl: Good grammar has become even more important today than it was ten or fifteen years ago. It’s common to meet people online now, so the quality of your writing has a huge influence on the first impression you make on people. I like to say that instead of “dressing for success,” you need to “write for success.” I have an article that my friend Martha Brockenbrough (who founded National Grammar Day in 2008) wrote about the importance of good grammar and how it can help you stay out of jail, keep your job, and even find love.

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Mignon Fogarty is the author of the New York Times best-seller Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing and six other books on writing. She was recently appointed to be the Donald W. Reynolds Chair of Media Entrepreneurship in the Reynolds School of Journalism and Advanced Media Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Thanks, Mignon, for your time!

Curious to know what kind of grammar nerd you are? Take Grammarly’s quiz in honor of National Grammar Day.