When I first entered the workforce, I asked an older, wiser friend to review my resume. She chastised me for using the word telephony, laughing at my “made-up word.” Even though I used it correctly and my prospective employers would (likely) understand it, my friend’s mirth and Master’s degree intimidated me, so I removed telephony […]
Tag: writing basics
Last week we considered four aspects of a writer’s voice. Today, we’ll discuss how to find our voice. This isn’t mysterious or evasive; there’s no multistep process—and it isn’t hard to understand. Seriously. Here are four thoughts on our writing voice. We Already Have a Voice: We need to recognize that if we write, we […]
When we write an instructional article, post, or nonfiction book, we have three ways to address our audience. The method we select will affect how we connect with our audience, influencing if they receive—or even read-our words. Let’s consider these three styles: Inclusive: To include our audience when we write, we pepper our words with […]
How concerned should we be over passive sentences? My response has included both extremes: ignore every one of them and kill each one. Right now, I’m somewhere in the middle. Years ago spell check shocked me by showing all of the passive sentences I used when I wrote. Seemingly every sentence. It was so bad […]
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How to Improve as a Writer
I recently read a piece I wrote a short five months ago—an article I worked hard to perfect—and was shocked. It wasn’t that my writing was bad; it was that I’ve improved in the intervening time. For most of my life writing has been something I did as part of my job; it was secondary. […]
In past posts, we talked about the importance of watching out for words that can mean opposite things, words with confusing meanings, and slang. Another consideration is clichés. A cliché is an overused phrase or idea. Initially, it may have been a colorful word combination, but with excessive use and abuse, it has become trite. […]
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Be Careful With Slang
I’ve had several posts about word choices: Commonly Confused Words, Same Word – Opposite Meaning, and Confusing Words. Next up is slang. We need to use caution when interjecting slang in our writing. Slang can date our work: If our story is set in the sixties, a character might say “groovy.” However, anyone who wrote “groovy” in the sixties […]
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Confusing Words
Last week we talked about words that are confusing because they have opposite definitions. Today we will cover some words with often-misunderstood definitions. Consider: Penultimate does not mean more than ultimate but means second to last.Confusing usage: “It is the penultimate lap of the race.”Is it the most exciting lap or simply the lap before the final […]
In “Check Your Writing” I noted that, as writers, we only need to scrutinize two things: our facts and our words. Sometimes words can have opposite meanings and we need to use them with grave caution – or avoid them altogether. Consider: Oversight: 1) An unintentional mistake; 2) watchful care. Confusing usage: “His oversight of the […]
In last week’s post, Check Your Writing, I mentioned the need to watch out for commonly confused words. Spell checkers point out some of the most typical—such as its versus it’s—but I suspect all writers have certain words that trip them up. Knowing what these words are is the first step to avoiding them when […]