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When I teach writing classes, give book talks, or generally discuss strategies for improving written communication, I often get this question: “What are the best strategies for writing well?”

 

Writers (anyone who communicates through writing) can do many things to improve the clarity, correctness, and impact of their writing. Based on my years of helping clients improve their writing, here are my top 5 strategies.

 

1. Use the Rhetorical Subject as the Grammatical Subject.

 

Sometimes, the “doer” of the main action is not the grammatical subject (the word serving as the subject to the main verb). Consider this sentence:

 

“Finding a solution is our greatest concern.”

 

Here, “Finding a solution” is the grammatical subject of “is.” However, we need to ask, “What’s the action being described by this sentence?” The main action is finding a solution. Then we ask, “Who is doing this action?” The answer is “We are.” We, therefore, is the rhetorical subject and should be used as the grammatical subject. This gives us the following sentence:

 

            “We are most concerned with finding a solution.”

 

2. Use the Rhetorical Action as the Main Verb.

 

The rhetorical action is the main action described by the sentence. The main verb and the rhetorical action might not be the same. (Generally, when we are trying to identify the rhetorical subject, we first have to identify the rhetorical action.) Consider this sentence:

            “I explained that good writing requires knowledge of the reader.”

Here, the subject and main verb are “I explained,” but the rhetorical action is “requires.” In clear writing, the main verb and the rhetorical action should be the same word. Using this strategy, the revised sentence is as follows:

 

            “As I explained, good writing requires knowledge of the reader.”

 

3. Keep the Subject, Verb, and Object together.

 

Find your subject and main verb and place them close together. Otherwise, the reader may have difficulty understanding what you are trying to communicate, and the sentences will be unnecessarily complicated. Consider this sentence.

 

“The funding proposal, which requested financial support for the new capital improvement project and was submitted by the team of regional division directors, failed to impress the investors.”

 

The subject “proposal” is widely separated from the main verb “failed.” Using this tip, we get the following:

 

“The team of regional directors requested financial support for the new capital improvement project, but the proposal failed to impress the investors.”

 

Notice that the revised version is two independent clauses. This is fine. Notice also that both clauses have the subject and verb together and that the sentence is clearer than the original.

 

Now, let’s expand on this idea further. To help readers understand your sentences with the least effort, place the object as close as possible to the main verb. Consider this sentence.

 

“John fought for years and with strenuous effort his wicked tendencies.”

 

In this sample, “fought” is the main verb, and the phrase “his wicked tendencies” is the object of the verb. Using this writing tip, we place the object as close as possible to the main verb. This gives us the following, easy-to-understand, revision:

 

“John fought his wicked tendencies for years and with strenuous effort.”

 

4. Organize Sentences to Create Transitions.

 

Each sentence should create a transition from the sentence before to the sentence following, while adding new content. Also, the final sentences in a paragraph need to create a transition to the following paragraph. This gives us two principles for how we order sentences.

Consider this paragraph (plus the first sentence from the next paragraph):

 

“(1) The first commercially produced simulator used to train clinicians was available in 1994. (2) The newest simulator is the SimX-4. (3) The SimX-4 is completely wireless and provides vascular access and numerous clinical scenarios, as well as the ability to customize scenarios to accommodate administering intravenous drugs. (4) Clinical simulation is being used increasingly to teach skills to clinicians.

 

(5) The content of training programs for administering drugs is not changing.”

 

Sentence 4 is misplaced. If we move sentence 4 to the beginning of the paragraph, it establishes the context for the entire paragraph, and it provides a transition to sentence 2 with the terms “teach” and “clinicians.” Also, now sentence 3 can make a smooth transition to the next paragraph with the terms “administering drugs.” Here is the revised version.

 

“(4) Clinical simulation is being used increasingly to teach skills to clinicians. (1) The first commercially produced simulator used to train clinicians was available in 1994. (2) The newest simulator is the SimX-4. (3) The SimX-4 is completely wireless and provides vascular access and numerous clinical scenarios, as well as the ability to customize scenarios to accommodate administering intravenous drugs.

 

(5) The content of training programs for administering drugs is not changing.”

 

Overall, we have satisfied our two principles. Each sentence creates a transition from the previous to the next sentence, and the final sentence creates a transition to the next paragraph. The revised passage is more coherent, direct, and logical.

 

5. Discuss Only One Idea Per Paragraph.

 

The paragraph is the basic unit for expressing an idea, which means each paragraph only discusses one idea.

 

When writing: Determine the idea about which you want to write. Then write a paragraph about that idea. You may need to determine any supporting information, which will also go in that paragraph.

 

When editing: The process is the opposite. Read the paragraph and ask, “What is being discussed here?” If you cannot summarize it as one idea, the paragraph needs to be fixed. For example, you may have two separate ideas, in which case you will need two paragraphs. If you have no main idea, you may decide that the information needs to be a part of a different paragraph, or you may strike out the paragraph altogether.

 

More Information about These Strategies

 

These strategies and the supporting discussions were adapted from the writing instruction in 300 Days of Better Writing: A daily handbook for improving your writing. This writing guide contains 300 strategies for writing clearly, correctly, effectively and provides a more thorough discussion of these 5 top strategies to improve writing.

 

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About the Author:
David Bowman is the Owner and Chief Editor of Precise Edit, a comprehensive editing, proofreading, and document analysis service for authors, students, and businesses. Precise Edit also offers a variety of other services, such as translation, transcription, and website development.
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Tags: grammatical subject, good writing, correctness, subject verb, book talks

Essay writing is a complex skill to be attained by everyone to handle every day life affairs. Good writing ability makes one succeed in a wide variety of things in practical life. It is not a very hard skill to attain. Proper attitude and practice facilitate better writing in all. There are certain basic principles for everyone to follow. Some shortcuts make strong writers stronger.

‘Writerism’ is rather a less heard word in academics. It implies overused or misused language. Helping verbs like am, is, are, was, were, being, be, been etc used together with ‘by’ or with ‘by….someone’ is a category of sentence which is misunderstood by many. These combinations are actually passives. Sentences in passive voice can be used in essay writing, but it is desirable to limit their use abundantly.

‘Be’ is a verb form which has been extensively overused by many writers. In order to make your custom written essays look supreme, resolve this inaccuracy perfectly. The same auxiliaries used with an adjective make another category of sentence. For example: “He was thrilled to see the dancing performance”. A was + adjective structure is less desirable than a single colorful verb. However, overuse of colorful verbs is very disastrous. Any such attempt kills the entire beauty of the piece of writing.

There is a tendency among some writers to beautify the language by using polished and sophisticated terms. They make use of ‘unusual’ verbs to achieve the end. It happens quite often that the vocabulary is more interesting than the subject matter. Use of ordinary verbs never affects the overall beauty of your essay. Quite the opposite, it adds to the beauty of it. There are certain people who admire the use of unusual verbs in your writing. But not all. The standard way of writing essay is not that. The content is more important in any text. The words and expressions used are only a means. It must look fabulous. But never make it look awkward by polishing it too much. “The car grumbled its way to the curb”. This is an ideal example for such a sentence which is so colorful. The verb used is unusual and such verbs are called Florid Verbs. The car is not a character. For the same reason, it must be described plainly. Odd adjectives, nouns and adverbs have to be kept away from all type of custom essay writings.

In order to avoid the conjunctions ‘and’ or ‘but’, certain writers use ‘as’ and ‘then’ in their places. This practice creates much confusion, and sometimes the entire sentence becomes completely meaningless. They are called ‘odd connectives’. All the care has to be taken to ward of such inconsistencies from your writings.

There is another category of verbs called Dead Verbs or Colorless Verbs. Such verbs convey only the action implied by the word plainly. They do not communicate any other information. They are commonly used verbs in general essay writings. Walked, turned, crossed, run, ran, go, went, gone, leave, left, have, had, get, got etc are some examples for it.

Instances can be traced when people use colorless verbs with inadequate adverbs. “He walked slowly across the room.” “He stalked across the room.” Both convey different meanings. Apt verbs have to be used according to the situation. When an inadequate adverb is used with a colorless verb, the sentence can mean something else. Hence, it is imperative to fix this problem in writing.

The use of words and language is totally different in different types of essays. A fictional writing and a non-fictional writing show differences in their linguistic aspects. It is a common practice among school, teachers to use fiction English in classrooms. It is wrong. Be careful enough to construct a well balanced sentence. As far as the students are concerned, they begin to learn the basic principles of language in schools. The structure of the sentence is, therefore, very important.

Each word holds up other words. Flowery and over structured expressions have a negative impact on the harmony of the entire sentence. “What it was upon close examination was a mass the center of which was suffused with a glow which appeared rube scent to the observers who were amazed and confounded by this untoward manifestation.” This sentence is typically over structured. An over structured sentence is definite to mislead meaning. ‘What’, ‘which’ and ‘who’ are the words that make complication in the sentence. The use of the conjunction ‘who’ has certain characteristics. ‘Who’ is the form in nominative case and ‘whose’ in possessive. ‘Whom’ is the objective form of it. ‘Who’ never changes case to match an antecedent. Example: I blame them who made the unjust law.

Essay writing is a skill only practiced people can handle. If one follows all the principles of writing strictly, the stuff is sure to exhibit excellence. Use and overuse of certain terms are important areas to be considered while writing. Linguistic errors and inaccuracies can be avoided in writing if the writer gets tips and guidelines on it.

Essay writing is a skill only practiced people can handle. Use and overuse of certain terms are important areas to be considered while writing essays. To solve this hurdle you can always seek help of custom essay writing services to guide you through this process and get your essays done in a professional manner

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About the Author:
The author has been with EssayAcademia.com for some years, specialised in admission essay writing and personal experience essay writing. Essay writing is a skill only practiced people can handle. Use and overuse of certain terms are important areas to be considered while writing essays. To solve this hurdle you can always seek help of custom essay writing services to guide you through this process and get your essays done in a professional manner.
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Tags: proper attitude, custom written essays, helping verbs, writing essay, good writing, passive voice

One example is our parents. On the other hand, as you level in the appropriate age, your mother or father sends you to school; to study and to learn more, not only in writing though.

I also wanted to share a link, wherein I have found examples of bad writing through the net. (http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/writsamp0.htm). All and sundry has cranked out their own fragment of bad writing, but it turns out, bad writing may be necessary as a part of the creative process.

Well, I surely do not want you to end up like the picture behind while writing. Here are a few reasons why bad writing can be helpful to writers:

If reading good writing can show you how to write, reading bad writing can do the opposite. Reading bad writing can not only provide a few laughs but also show a writer what mistakes not to make. After all, it is far better to learn from someone else’s mistake than to make your own. Knowing how to recognize bad prose shows that you know how to avoid using it yourself.

Common features of bad writing are spelling and grammatical errors. Rather than repeating the same mistakes, there are plenty of resources available to look up those commonly misspelled words or grammar mistakes to make sure your writing doesn’t fall into the same bad traps.

Bad writing helps us learn what is effective writing and what is not. Getting back those high school and college English papers with all of the blood red ink marks helped you learn how to be a more effective writer. Just because you’re out of school doesn’t mean that your writing is perfect. Having bad writing peer reviewed can show you what about your writing is working and what isn’t.

Practice makes perfect. Practices in writing as often as possible then review your own writing for examples of bad prose. Learn to eliminate these bad entries. The more you practice, the better a writer you will learn how to be.

Just because something is badly written does not mean it has to stay that way. With a little love and attention, any writer can take a terrible piece of prose and turn it into a beautiful work of art.

Keep writing!

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About the Author:
For more article marketing tips and tricks on how to avoid bad writing and become a better writer, visit Howard Shen’s blog to get more updates. This site offers bad writing to learn from as well as exercises specifically designed to improve your writing.
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Tags: school doesn, effective writing, grammatical errors, grammar mistakes, red ink, good writing

First of all, what is an anecdote? Although some people have encountered this word, I am pretty much sure that there are a lot of people out there who don’t know the meaning of anecdote into writing yet.

Anecdotes, short biographical incidents that foster some relevance to the subject at hand, are part and parcel of many good writing. They are especially useful for articles and essays, where they are employed as a way to demonstrate particular points.
A compelling anecdote, of course, can do more than exhibit particular ideas. Done properly, they can add color and texture to any piece of writing you compose, making it more accessible and easier to understand.

Anecdotes can be achieve form your own personal account or possibly, a story that you already heard from other people. Anecdotes can be a simple and short story. It can also be a parable or any other quick story telling about a person, a place, a thing or even an event. An example to this is that, when you heard that someone is telling you a story where it also happened into you, then that is what we called anecdotal story. A lot of writers use this kind of technique just to catch the attention of their readers.

If you are writing a journal, you must have the knowledge on how to use anecdote effectively. Even so, anecdotes are considered as an essential part of writing especially in an autobiography or any memoir. That is, a writer should have a stock of stories which will surely add life in their narrative writing. Also, this will serve as to attract the interest of your readers in a more appealing way.

Besides, it is easy to collect stories from different sources. You might need a help from other people you might know, form the books or any reading material or through the internet where a lot of sources are being displayed online. You can also write down important details about an even that had happened from the past.

An Emotional Connection

Effective anecdotes are like little narratives, providing a snapshot of the issue, all while eliciting an emotional response. Because it manages to engage the reader emotionally, it’s able to communicate with the reader in ways that regular paragraphs just aren’t able to do – yes, even those that received the rewriting benefits of the best English writing software around.

Where To Use Anecdotes

The best places to use anecdotes are those parts of the text that can benefit from a little more personality. As such, they are perfect to use as replacements for bland statistics and explanations, if you can convey the same information using them.

Finding Anecdotes

How do you find little stories to use as anecdotes? The best place to get them, of course, are experiences from your own life. If you have personally been a part of an appropriate event, then use them in your work. The next best place to source anecdotes are your subjects, especially those that you interview for the piece. Lastly, you can draw from those of other people, either from experiences they confided in you or those you’ve read from other sources.

See how innovative English Writing Software instantly can boost your English writing and watch how NLP technology can help you to write perfect emails, essays, reports and letters. More Info.Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/writing-articles/how-to-use-anecdotes-to-energize-your-writing-1752434.html

Tags: emotional connection, good writing, reading material, writing a journal, what is an anecdote, meaning of anecdote

Anyone has the capacity to make their writings good and effective. All you have to do is to deal with its different characteristics. Therefore, you don’t have to blame yourself if you think that you don’t have the talents of writing effectively. They say that if you have a wide experience with writing contents – you’ve been writings for years and have experience the ups and downs of writings and meet other authors style in writing as well, then you can write better and faster.

They say that if you are intelligent enough to think about the concept of your topic and write it down in a piece paper can make your writing look good and factual. They say that a newbie could never be an expert author if you don’t have the brains and if you don’t have enough experience in writing.

That concept is indeed wrong. Anyone can write good and effectively regardless of your status as a writer. All you have to do is to know the things that you can apply when writing. As long as you have the determination to write successfully, I guess you will never fail to have a good and effective writing.

It’s never that easy to characterize good writing. For the most part, we know instinctively when something that we’re reading is of great quality. Similarly, we know it when a piece of writing is better pushed aside.
While it’s likely not possible to create a play-by-play list of all characteristics of great writing, certain things are present in almost every well-made piece of text:

?It has a clearly-defined purpose.

?It makes clear and focused points.

?It supports those points with details and accompanying facts.

?It presents varied points in a cohesive manner.

?It doesn’t waste the reader’s time by veering away from focus without reason.

Make your writings clear and direct to the point. Tell your readers about what your purpose is and for them to understand it better. Also, don’t make your content too long and not that short. It is should be concise rather than elaborating some parts of your content. These can really make your readers feel distracted. Observe your grammar and spellings. You are writing in order to influence people and therefore, your content must be appropriate and logical since there are different kinds of readers out there.

If you take account of all the well-made writing you’ve seen over the years, those points will inevitably be present. They are, for the most part, fundamental characteristics of what makes a piece of writing work.
Before you can get to good writing, though, you’ll have to get past the inevitable obstacles. Grammar errors and poor sentence construction are typically the bane that prevent beginning writers from progressing towards turning out good copy.

With modern tools, like English writing software, however, people are beginning to bridge the gap. Instead of spending their time worrying about the “correctness” of their words, they can simply leave that decision to the tools, focusing their attention instead on the elements that make writing stand out.

See how innovative English Writing Software instantly can boost your English writing and watch how NLP technology can help you to write perfect emails, essays, reports and letters. More Info.Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/writing-articles/characteristics-of-good-writing-1653968.html

Tags: effective writing, good writing, cohesive manner, play list, piece of writing, ups and downs

In order to make your writing fresh and full of life, you need to think clearly. Your imagination can add up some spice in your writing. So you need to come up with good ideas and then write it all down in a piece of paper or you can have it typed in your computer. It is so amazing to have a very imaginative thought in order to support your writings with facts or information also, with the help of some research and studies in order to make it more educational.

Different people also have different perspective. The only thing that can make their writing good and effective is due to their unique ideas. There are times that your though have gone wild and it’s an advantage in your part since you can write it all down in your paper of have it documented using your computer. But then, it is also a bothersome if there is no possible idea that comes out in your mind and you can’t even think of any word to add it up in your writings.

There are times also that when you are going to elaborate your topic further, you can’t just think of a fresher idea in order to make it more unique than other writer’s idea about the topic. Now you are asking, “What shall I do to make my perspective fresh and unique?” although that will be a problem in your part, there is a way in order to sharpen your mind up and for you to create a better writing.

Proofreading is an indispensable part of any good writing. No matter how much labor and attention you’ve applied to your work, it can always use proofreading to fashion it into the best piece it can be. In the past, the process of proofreading was an arduous undertaking, requiring plenty of time and concentrated work. Nowadays, that burden has been lightened a little with the help of English writing software.

Of course, automated proofreading still carries some limitations. While it can ensure your text will be free of most grammar weaknesses and poor sentence constructs, it’s rarely able to give it the polish that sets your writing apart from the millions of text written every day. If you’re looking to turn in the best piece of writing possible, we highly recommend reviewing any written work with a fresh perspective, apart from the largely mechanical function of software-based proofreading.

After you’ve written the piece and ran it through your grammar software, you should take one or two days off away from it to get it out of your system. Only after the short break should you return to see how to further improve it. Usually, you’ll notice things you barely even took note of before. Similarly, the short break should give you some time to digest the ideas you’ve previously written. Most of the time, it will help It mature, allowing you to strengthen your positions and, hopefully, improve the rest of your work.

See how innovative Writing Software instantly can boost your English writing and watch how NLP technology can help you to write perfect emails, essays, reports and letters. More Info.Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/writing-articles/how-to-gain-a-fresh-perspective-on-your-writing-1641179.html

Tags: plenty of time, grammar, different perspective, writing software, piece of paper