Colleague.biz

Writing skills are at the top of the list for effective blogging, or for being effective at any sort of written communication. It isn't enough just to run the spelling and grammar check in MSWord. It helps to know the basics of good writing.

Becoming a master at the craft takes years, but conquering the basics of writing so you don't embarrass yourself is straightforward. On Writing Well by William Zinsser is one of my all-time favorite books and should be read by anyone who wants to write for clarity. And the 22 points on this list are a great summary of the common errors many of us commit when writing informally.

Dogma 2000 (the site seems to be down at the moment) says good writing and good grammar don't matter -- write it as you feel it. If you're writing for your feelings that's fine. But if you're writing for others to read pay attention to this list.

Good writing checklist. Good writing. Good writing is the basis for weblogging. Good books about how to write learn are On writing well and Style: toward clarity and grace. If you don't feel like reading books, this list might help as well:

Avoid alliteration.
Prepositions dangle awkwardly if you use them to end sentences with.
Avoid clichés and colloquialisms like the plague, or you will seem old hat.
Employ the vernacular, while eschewing arcane and obfuscatory verbiage.
Avoid ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
Take it easy with parenthetical remarks (however relevant), to avoid chopping up sentences (unnecessarily (we might add)).
To ever, however artfully, split an infinitive, marks you as grammatically challenged.
Skip the foreign words and phrases you know, n’est-ce pas?
Never generalize.
“I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson
Comparisons can clog up writing as badly as alliterations and cliches.
Avoid redundancy and verbosity, or readers will think you are repeating yourself and using too many words as well besides.
We really get @*&%$**)!! when you use vulgarities.
Clear, specific writing beats vagueness, we suppose. Whatever.
Overstatement totally destroys any credibility you ever had forever.
Understatement can, at times, perhaps shade a point to the point of its fading away.
One word sentences? Eliminate.
Analogies work about as well as fur on a flounder.
“Is” just sits there. Pick verbs that do something.
Even if a mixed metaphor sings, you should derail it.
Who needs rhetorical questions?
Its distrakting too punctuat, an spel rong.
Good writing is surprisingly hard. [Krzysztof Kowalczyk's Weblog] [Seb's Open Research]