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Tips
for good writing
Adapted from E.B. White's The Elements of Style
1. Place yourself in the background
Remember that the paper is not about you. It is about the topic!
People often sit down to write and worry about what readers will
think of them. We all want our readers to think we are brilliant
(or at least passable). It is a natural impulse, but a bad approach
to writing. The essay isn't about you. It is about your subject.
Focus on how you can make the reader understand what you know
about the subject. Think of the paper as a vehicle for giving
information to someone else. What does the reader need to know?
How can you best present the information? If you worry that someone
will judge you for not writing well or being smart enough or if
you start to think that you can really show how smart you are
in this paper: Stop. Remember that the paper isn't about you.
It is about your topic.
2. Write in a way that comes naturally
While writing and speaking are not identical, they should be related.
Avoid the temptation to use big words and long sentences. Write
the way that you think and speak. You may want to be a little
more formal in your writing than you are in you speaking. Don't
use slang or sentence fragments without good reason. But use your
own thoughts and words. It is fine to push yourself and use some
new words or concepts, but keep the paper 90 percent grounded
in words that make sense to you.
3. Make a plan
A paper is an intellectual road trip. You are going to start one
place, move through interesting areas, stop for a while to look
at an idea, and then ultimately arrive at your destination, the
conclusion. You want to plan a trip that makes sense. You wouldn't
drive from New York to California to have coffee and then to New
Jersey to have lunch and then to Texas to have desert. That trip
would be a lot of driving around for not much payoff. The same
thing can happen in a paper. You want a trip that makes sense.
You don't want to get lost along the way. An outline is your intellectual
road map. When you start planning you paper, write out what you
want to cover. Once you have a good plan, you can make changes
along the way. If you want to add an idea or take one out that
isn't working, that is fine. The changes that you make should
improve your paper. To do that, always keep one eye on where you
are going. Make sure the road you are taking makes sense.
4. Write simple and clear sentences
Simple sentences are powerful. It is the really, really, important
English language constructions to make an increasingly valuable
point very clear to the multitudes of readers that don't work.
See my point? Say it simply and clearly. That way we will hear
you.
5. Avoid the use of qualifiers
Any time you use a qualifier, such as very, really, or extremely
think about whether it helps make your point. The sentence will
probably be stronger without it.
6. Do not overstate
When you overstate, your readers will instantly be on guard. They
will lose confidence in your judgment. (If I told you that the
food on campus was the best in the world, would you wonder about
me? Perhaps be suspicious of my taste?) The best advice is to
call them as you see them. If you've done your research and thought
seriously about the question, be confident in your views. Then
state your thoughts clearly and simply. * A related caution: the
sinister brother of the over statement is the "snow job".
Writers are sometimes tempted to write big, powerful sentences
to cover the fact that they don't know much about the topic. The
readers are presumed to be idiots who will not notice that the
writer isn't really saying anything. They will notice, and they
will not be amused.
7. Write, revise, and revise again!
What comes out of the printer after you've written the final word
of your conclusion is the first draft. Don't hand it in. Read
it. Try reading it out loud. Listen to the words that you've written.
Do they make the points that you want to make? Don't assume the
words say what you wanted them to say. Listen to the words that
you wrote as if someone else had written them. Are there words
that sound funny? Take them out. Are some sentences so long that
you can hardly say them? Shorten those sentences. Do some ideas
seem like they aren't as important as you thought they were? Cut
them out. Are some ideas that you thought you had explained missing
or choppy? Add more information into the paper. It doesn't matter
what the first draft looks like. What will make you a good writer
is how well you listen to your own words. Have the courage to
get rid of ideas or sentences that don't work. Move the paragraphs
around. If you have a word processor, you can save one draft and
just play around with another copy of it. If it is a disaster,
you can always go back to the original draft. Writing should be
like pottery or painting. Get in there. Get dirty. Play.
8. Use orthodox spelling
It is becoming common to write words in shorthand: Nite for Night,
u for you. Don't do it. Your reader might know what you mean,
but might wonder how serious you are about what you are writing.
You are writing to get your point across as clearly as possible.
Don't let quirky spelling get in your way. *A related caution:
If you are a poor speller, get someone else to go over your papers
and make sure there are no mistakes. Good spelling and good writing
are two different things, but you don't want spelling mistakes
tripping up your reader.
9. Do not inject opinion
We all have opinions about almost everything. It is tempting to
toss them out freely. Resist that temptation. Now you might be
confused. So far, I've advised you to use your own voice and to
say what you think. How is that different from your opinion? Consider
this: I could tell you about the political strategies of the 2000
presidential election. I could talk about public opinion and when
and how it shifted. I could tell you about the policy differences
between the candidates or how money was spent. I could do all
this without ever telling you which guy I thought was a bozo.
That is the difference between analysis and opinion. In analysis,
you are taking a hard look at the facts and really trying to sort
out what happened. You accept the results even if you don't like
them. An opinion is what you feel. Readers want your analysis;
they don't want your opinion. You probably don't want mine either.
10. Enjoy Writing
Writing is hard work, which you have probably noticed. What you
might not have noticed is that it is thrilling. There is nothing
fun about dashing off a bad paper on too much coffee and not enough
sleep. You don't enjoy writing it, and your reader doesn't enjoy
reading it. No one's time has been well spent. You and your readers
walk away wishing never to do anything like that again. That isn't
really writing. That is just getting words on the page. You may
have typed many papers in high school or college and yet never
really written. When you think, research, write, revise, think
again, and write more, you begin to understand what ideas are
all about. You begin to write. If you have never been a "good"
writer, if you have failed when you tried to write papers too
fast and without any guidance, then you can't write bad papers
well. Good for you. Neither can most good writers. Writing is
a process. It takes time to learn. It takes practices. But it
opens up worlds to you.
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