Writing Tips
for clarity and concisenessArchive for September, 2007
thankfully
Some years ago, I had a client who used thankfully incorrectly.
At the time, I didn’t know enough about usage to explain what the problem was. Now, I know.
It’s all in the meaning of the word.
The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed., has this to say about thankfully:
This word traditionally means “appreciatively, gratefully.” It is not in good use as a substitute for thank goodness or fortunately.
Incorrect:
Appreciatively, that problem has been resolved.
Gratefully, that problem has been resolved.
Thankfully, that problem has been resolved.
Correct:
Fortunately, that problem has been resolved.
Thank goodness that problem has been resolved!
“This is the most wonderful gift I have ever received,” she said thankfully.
“This is the most wonderful gift I have ever received,” she said gratefully.
For more free writing tips, guidelines, and articles, visit Treasurefield Communications.
writing exercise
Yesterday I wrote about the benefits of meditation and physical exercise, such as swimming, in clearing the mind before writing. Today, I want to give a plug to the value of freewriting.
Whether the task before you is essay writing, report writing, proposal writing, business writing, technical writing, or some other type of writing, freewriting can help. Here’s how:
You have given your writing project so much thought that your mind is now full of ideas, some useful, some not. To separate the useful ideas from the rest, try viewing your mind as a thrift shop. As thrift shop fans know, if you devote some quality time to sifting through the confusing mass of items on the racks and tables, you will likely come across an absolute gem that’s worth far more than the asking price on the tag.
Years ago, I had a friend who was an expert thrift shopper. Whenever she went to a nearby thrift shop, Aardvark’s Odd Ark, she came home with flawless, classic cashmere sweaters and other treasures that cost only $2 or $3.
Freewriting is similar. Sit down in a quiet place for 10 to 20 minutes (set a timer) and write whatever is in your mind. This is especially pleasant when a writing friend or two joins you. Write as fast as you can, and when the time is up, enjoy a cup of tea and read what you have written out loud–to yourself if you are alone, or to a friend, in person or by phone. Chances are good that you will find a hidden gem or two or three. When you settle down for some serious writing, you can expand on those gems.
For more free writing tips, guidelines, and articles, visit Treasurefield Communications.
calm mind a must
A couple weeks ago, a client and I had a perfect demonstration of how helpful it is to be calm and clear before writing. Neither one of us was calm or clear during a telephone consultation; we were rushed and breathless before we began, our minds busy with unfinished business.
As I reviewed what my client had written, I offered suggestions for improving the grammar and flow. She couldn’t understand what I meant. For my part, I couldn’t understand what she was trying to convey, either by what she had written or what she was now saying. It was as if we existed on two parallel planes of existence. We could hear each other just fine, but didn’t have a clue what the other was actually saying.
After over an hour of slogging through, we gave up and agreed to try again the next morning. Without mentioning it to her, I made a personal commitment to meditate for at least 30 minutes before our scheduled appointment. I didn’t know that she also made a personal commitment: to get up before sunrise and go for a swim at the community pool before calling me. Swimming always clears her mind.
What a difference a little meditation and swimming can make! We both came to the consultation with clear minds, we understood each other perfectly, and we completed more than we had thought possible in less time than we had spent the day before.
For more free writing tips, guidelines, and articles, visit Treasurefield Communications.
reason…because
The frequent use of reason with because makes me crazy. I am grateful that I came across several examples of this grammatical error in the The Law of Attraction, by best-selling authors Esther and Jerry Hicks. I enjoy their books very much, and hope my nit-picking doesn’t offend them.
Here’s the first example:
If you could realize that the reason your thought about your “unworthiness” feels so bad is because that thought is in utter disagreement with the way your Inner Being feels, you might then seek to improve the direction of your thought.
The definition of because is “the reason that.” Literally, the sentence above means this:
If you could realize that the reason your thought about your “unworthiness” feels so bad is the reason that that thought is in utter disagreement with the way your Inner Being feels, you might then seek to improve the direction of your thought.
Here’s another example:
The reason so many of you are drawn to subjects of indeliberate intent is because you do not have deliberate intent.
Translation:
The reason so many of you are drawn to subjects of indeliberate intent is the reason that you do not have deliberate intent.
It’s nonsense, and it’s easy to fix. One option is to replace because with that:
If you could realize that the reason your thought about your “unworthiness” feels so bad is that that thought is in utter disagreement with the way your Inner Being feels, you might then seek to improve the direction of your thought.
Since the repetition of that is awkward, a better option for this sentence is to delete reason:
If you could realize that your thought about your “unworthiness” feels so bad because it is in utter disagreement with the way your Inner Being feels, you might then seek to improve the direction of your thought.
The same options apply to the other example:
The reason so many of you are drawn to subjects of indeliberate intent is that you do not have deliberate intent.
Or this:
Many of you are drawn to subjects of indeliberate intent because you do not have deliberate intent.
For a detailed grammatical explanation of the pitfalls of using reason and because together, check out Get It Write.
One more gripe, before I close for the day. Take a look at this sentence:
That is the reason why beliefs are transmitted so easily from parent to child.
Using reason and why together is redundant. Here are two cleaner options:
That is the reason beliefs are transmitted so easily from parent to child.
That is why beliefs are transmitted so easily from parent to child.
For more free writing tips, guidelines, and articles, visit Treasurefield Communications.
hyphen (not)
For the past several months, I have been helping a client write and edit the text for her brand new website. She has an impressive business background, and I summed it up like this: “richly-varied business experience.” I later learned that though there is nothing wrong with the words, the hyphen shouldn’t be there.
Normally, a hyphen is used when two or more words form a compound modifier: middle-class neighborhood, little-understood rule, best-selling author, five-year-old child. But now I know that adverbs ending in “ly” are an exception. The rule is in The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, at 7.87:
Adverbs ending in “ly.” Compounds formed by an adverb ending in “ly” plus an adjective or participle (such as largely irrelevant or smartly dressed) are not hyphenated either before or after a noun, since ambiguity is virtually impossible.
In other words, don’t use a hyphen after an adverb that (1) ends in “ly,” if it’s (2) combined with an adjective or participle, and (3) comes before or after a noun.
Confusing? You bet! It may help to review 7.90 in The Chicago Manual of Style.
For more free writing tips, guidelines, and articles, visit Treasurefield Communications.
redundancy
Redundancy has a special talent for sneaking into sentences when the writer isn’t looking. Following are two sentences by best-selling authors.
The first is from a book about spiritual principles:
Whenever you feel negative emotion, it is always telling you that whatever you are thinking about is important, and that you are thinking about the opposite of what you really desire.
Using always in the same sentence as whenever is redundant. The simple solution is to delete one of the words:
Whenever you feel negative emotion, it is telling you that whatever you are thinking about is important, and that you are thinking about the opposite of what you really desire.
That’s an improvement, but there are other problems with usage and sentence structure. I won’t go into them right now, as I want to keep the focus on redundancy. But I will offer this cleaner alternative to the sentence above:
Negative emotion is a sure sign that what you are thinking is important, and that it is the opposite of what you really desire.
The next example is from a mystery novel:
A woman bustled in from an open doorway. She was about fiftyish.
“Fiftyish” is slang, and you won’t find it in Webster’s online dictionary. It means “about fifty,” making the last two words of the sentence redundant. Correct usage would be one of the following:
A woman bustled in from an open doorway. She was about fifty.
A woman bustled in from an open doorway. She was fiftyish.
Another option is to integrate the two sentences, like this:
A woman who was about fifty bustled in from an open doorway.
Or, like this:
A fiftyish woman bustled in from an open doorway.
For more free writing tips, guidelines, and articles, visit Treasurefield Communications.
negative statements create problems
As I read Ram Dass’ Journey of Awakening yesterday, one sentence stumped me:
Everyone needn’t go through the big public routes at all. The spiritual journey is individual, highly personal. It isn’t true that everybody should follow any one path.
I have read the first sentence over and over, and I still don’t know what it means. It could be this:
No one at all needs to go through the big public routes [to spiritual awakening].
Or, it could be this:
Some people don’t have to go through the big public routes [to spiritual awakening] at all.
Only Ram Dass knows what he intended with that first sentence, exemplifying one of the many wise guidelines in The Elements of Style by Strunk and White: Put statements in positive form.
Why risk making negative statements and leaving readers guessing? Put statements in positive form.
For more free writing tips, guidelines, and articles, visit Treasurefield Communications.
everyone (and not everyone)
Even best-selling authors sometimes miss the precise meaning of what they are writing, and “everyone” is often used incorrectly. The example below is in The Law of Attraction, by Esther Hicks and Jerry Hicks:
Recognize that everyone you meet is not deliberate in their intending, but know that by your deliberate intending, you will be in control of your life experience.
In other words, this means, “Recognize that no one you meet is deliberate in their attending,” and it isn’t true. The people who read books by Esther and Jerry Hicks probably will meet people who are deliberate in their intending, because those with similar interests tend to turn up in the same classes and at the same events. Surely the Hickses know this, and they probably meant the following:
Recognize that not everyone you meet is deliberate in their intending, but know that by your deliberate intending, you will be in control of your life experience.
Notice how changing the location of the word “not” gives the sentence an entirely different meaning.
For more free writing tips, guidelines, and articles, visit Treasurefield Communications.
amid, amidst, among
Amidst (or amid) is often confused with among. The Online Dictionary defines amidst as being in the middle of or surrounded by something, and among as mingling or intermixing with distinct or separate objects.
Examples of amidst/amid:
The exchange swung 400 points amidst a volatile trading day.
She stood singing at the bow of the ship, apparently unaware that they were amid a raging storm and on the verge of sinking.
Example of among:
He walked among the heritage oaks, some of which were over 400 years old, feeling blessed by their presence.
Garbl’s Writing Center has this to say about amid, amidst, among:
Avoid outdated amidst. Try using less formal in or among instead of amid. Use among with plural, countable nouns — among friends, among passengers — and save amid for use with uncountable mass nouns — amid a crowd, amid congestion.
The Chicago Manual of Style also advises against using amidst, opting instead for amid with mass nouns, as in amid talk of war, and asserts that among is used for plurals of count nouns, as in among the children.
For more free writing tips and guidelines, free articles, and a free introductory consultation, visit Treasurefield Communications.
quotes within quotes: British and U.S. styles
For quotes within quotes, the Americans use single quotation marks and the British use double quotation marks. Periods and commas are also opposite: inside the closing quotation mark in American style, and outside the closing quotation mark in British style.
American style:
“When I told Henry that his behavior was unacceptable, he calmly replied, ‘You have no right to judge me.’”
British style (the opposite):
‘When I told Henry that his behavior was unacceptable, he calmly replied, “You have no right to judge me”‘.
For more free writing tips and guidelines, free articles, and a free introductory consultation, visit Treasurefield Communications.
