Tune In to the Sounds of Language
Although this book isn’t about writing poetry or song lyrics, you should still be sensitive to the way language sounds and know something about the literary devices at your disposal to produce sound effects:
Paint a Picture with Figurative Language
Figurative language uses words to engage the senses, memories, and imagination of the reader through a variety of literary devices, including the following:
Enhance Your Prose with Literary Devices
Literary devices are techniques that writers have developed to take language beyond its literal meaning and appeal to the senses. Although you’re more likely to encounter literary devices in fictional works and poetry, you can use them in other types of writing to drive home a point, clarify an idea, or punch up your prose. The […]
Sharpen Your Style
One way to develop a good writing style is to consciously strive to follow the guidelines described in the previous section. The following are additional ways to develop a mastery of style: Write with a purpose. Is your purpose to entertain, inform, instruct, persuade, or do something else? Writing with a clear purpose will help you […]
Style Guidelines
Although style varies and what constitutes a good writing style is somewhat subjective, the following guidelines can help you write with style: Keep it simple. Writing doesn’t have to be complicated to be good. It needs to be clear and direct. Unless you have a reason to do otherwise, stick with relatively short sentences and paragraphs. […]
Some Different Styles
Every type of writing or genre has a certain style. Here are brief descriptions of some common writing genres and their styles: News articles. These are written in an objective, presentational style by journalists. The writer tries to be invisible. As they say, this is a “just the facts” type of writing. Column. This form of journalism […]
Defining Style
Style is the manner in which a writer chooses to present content to an audience in order to achieve the desired effect. While some experts define style as a writer’s distinctive form of expression—or voice—style goes beyond that. A writer can change styles depending on the nature of the publication, the audience, the topic, the goal […]
Practice
Practice Each of the following sentences contains errors or poor choices in grammar, usage, or mechanics. Rewrite each sentence to fix anything that doesn’t seem right. If you can’t spot or correct the error, don’t beat yourself up. Instead, use this practice session to figure out where you need the most help. The answers that […]
Use Parallel Constructions
Parallel construction results when two or more related phrases are in the same grammatical form; for example, they’re all nouns, they’re all verbs, or they’re all gerunds (verbs ending in –ing that act as nouns). When items aren’t parallel, a sentence sounds awkward, as in the following example: The company rewarded its employees for their hard work, expertise, and paying attention […]
Beware of Misplaced and Omitted Commas
The comma is one of the most diminutive of punctuation marks, but an omitted or misplaced comma can cause considerable confusion. Here’s an example of how a comma can completely change the meaning of a sentence: Let’s bake, Grandma! Let’s bake Grandma! A missing serial comma (the comma before the last item in a series) can also […]