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oscar petersblog writing tutorial
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Writing Tips for Non-Writers Who Don't Want to Work at Writing A writing question: What writing tips would you whisper to those who aren't aspiring professionals, but would like to write better? If I asked you about losing weight and you said "Diet and Exercise" you'd be a) correct and b) ignored. So no ideas that take work. We want the quick fix! Tips like "Edit your work" aren't useful. "Gerunds are your friend" are. So, the task here: Tell y'all how to write better without you actually having to make an effort. Fine. Here's how I would do it. (NB: These work pretty well for people who do want to be pro writers, too.) 0. Speak what you write: This is rule zero because all other rules follow on this. Basically: If what you're writing is hard to speak, what makes you think it's going to be easy to read? It won't be. So speak out loud what you write. If you can't speak it naturally, rewrite it. Simple. 1. Punctuate, damn you: For God's sake, is it really so hard to know where to put a comma? When people read, even in their brains, there's usually some part of them that is sounding out the words. Without appropriate punctuation, especially commas, that word-speaking part will eventually choke on the sentence. Having said that, there's a tendency to over-punctuate as well, particularly with exclamation points. Too little punctuation makes it seem you want to collapse someone's lung, too much makes it look like you're a 14-year-old girl writing an IM. You want to avoid both. Here's a quick and dirty guide when to use punctuation: Periods: When you're writing down a thought and you're at the end of that thought, put a period. Commas: When you're writing down a thought and you want to take a breath, whether mental or physical, put in a comma. Semi-colon: Put these in your writing in the place where, in conversation, you'd arch your eyebrow or make some other sort of physical gesture signalling that you want to emphasize a point. Colon: Use when
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roysight"What writing tips would you whisper to those who aren't aspiring professionals, but would like to write better? If I asked you about losing weight and you said "Diet and Exercise" you'd be a) correct and b) ignored. So no ideas that take work. We want th
Whatever: Writing Tips for Non-Writers Who Don't Want to Work at Library
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14 Feb 06
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