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How to Write

by Frank L. Visco

My several years in the word game have learnt me several rules:

  • Always avoid alliteration.
  • Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
  • Avoid clichés like the plague. (They’re old hat.)
  • Employ the vernacular.
  • Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
  • Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
  • It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
  • Contractions aren’t necessary.
  • Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
  • One should never generalize.
  • Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”
  • Comparisons are as bad as clichés.
  • Don’t be redundant; don’t use more words than necessary; it’s highly superfluous.
  • Profanity sucks.
  • Be more or less specific.
  • Understatement is always best.
  • Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
  • One-word sentences? Eliminate.
  • Avoid footnotes.*
  • Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
  • The passive voice is to be avoided.
  • Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
  • Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
  • Who needs rhetorical questions?

* They’re annoying, typically irrelevant and hard to find.

This piece came in various emails from a number of people. Ask your students to add to this list!

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© 2008, Jane Bluestein, Ph.D., Instructional Support Services, Inc. Last updated on January 18, 2007 10:45 AM .