Writing Tips
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Concise Sentence Structure
A quick example on this lucky Friday the 13th:
President Bush has threatened Iran with military action if it fails to stop enriching uranium.
There are no grammatical errors in this sentence. But “if it fails to stop” twists my mind around. It would be more direct to put it like this:
President Bush has threatened Iran with military action unless it stops enriching uranium.
Or like this:
President Bush has threatened Iran with military action if it continues enriching uranium.
Questions? Comments?
Tara Treasurefield
Tara’s Writing Studio
Concise–TOO Concise
It’s a good policy to keep your writing concise, tight. But it’s equally important to include all the essential words. Here’s an example of how omitting an essential word can change the meaning:
Together, we can spread the dire need of the environment in our land.
Surely the writer didn’t intend to applaud the spread of what is already a dire environmental need! It’s a safe bet that the intended meaning was something like this:
Together, we can spread awareness of the dire need of the environment in our land.
Comments?
Cheers,
Tara Treasurefield
Tara’s Writing Studio
Run-on Sentence
Writers who create long sentences risk losing track of what they’re doing. Here’s an example:
When Simon turned twelve, Mason–who was now in his sixty-fourth year and beginning to suffer from palsey–began to teach the boy French, as much to practice a language he himself found fascinating as well as to further cultivate Simon’s appreciation of mental challenges.
Do you see the problem? The sentence veers off track at the last clause, where the writer used “as much to” with “as well as.” To be correct, it should read like this:
When Simon turned twelve, Mason–who was now in his sixty-fourth year and beginning to suffer from palsey–began to teach the boy French, as much to practice a language he himself found fascinating as to further cultivate Simon’s appreciation of mental challenges.
Or this:
When Simon turned twelve, Mason–who was now in his sixty-fourth year and beginning to suffer from palsey–began to teach the boy French, not only to further cultivate Simon’s appreciation of mental challenges, but also to practice a language he himself found fascinating.
Notice that in the previous two examples, Mason’s primary purpose was to teach French to Simon. In this next example, his primary purpose is to practice French himself; teaching French to Simon is secondary:
When Simon turned twelve, Mason–who was now in his sixty-fourth year and beginning to suffer from palsey–began to teach the boy French, to practice a language he himself found fascinating as well as to further cultivate Simon’s appreciation of mental challenges.
The last two examples give equal importance to Mason’s two goals–to practice French and to teach French to Simon:
When Simon turned twelve, Mason–who was now in his sixty-fourth year and beginning to suffer from palsey–began to teach the boy French, both to practice a language he himself found fascinating and to further cultivate Simon’s appreciation of mental challenges.
In the final example below, I have broken the original sentence into two, to illustrate that it’s easier to keep track of a short sentence than a long one:
When Simon turned twelve, Mason–who was now in his sixty-fourth year and beginning to suffer from palsey–began to teach the boy French. Mason had two purposes: to practice a language he himself found fascinating and to further cultivate Simon’s appreciation of mental challenges.
Questions? Comments?
Cheers,
Tara Treasurefield
Tara’s Writing Studio
Emphasis
Here’s a simple example of using emphasis when it isn’t needed:
That is an extremely revolutionary step.
Since “revolutionary” is already extreme, preceding it with the word “extremely” is extra.
Here’s a cleaner and simpler way to express the same thing–and also assure readers that you know what you’re doing:
That is a revolutionary step.
Any comments?
Cheers,
Tara Treasurefield
http://www.taratreasurefield.com
Simplify–and also Clarify
Here is a sentence that would benefit from both weeding and clarifying:
Oil profits are being used for the purpose of buying back stocks in the oil companies, instead of developing alternatives.
To simplify this sentence, replace “for the purpose of” with “to”:
Oil profits are being used to buy back stocks in the oil companies, instead of developing alternatives.
To clarify it, change from passive voice to active voice:
Oil companies are using their huge profits to buy back their own stock, instead of investing in renewable energy alternatives.
Cheers,
Tara Treasurefield
Synonyms
Using synonyms–words that have nearly the same meaning–in the same sentence is a common cause of clutter. It’s also a sign of confusion about the subtle differences in the meanings of the words. The following sentence is a clear and simple example:
The oil companies aren’t reinvesting their huge profits in ways that will reduce our oil addiction habit.
Because “addiction” and “habit” are synonyms, using both of them is overkill. Either of the following would do:
The oil companies aren’t reinvesting their huge profits in ways that will reduce our oil addiction.
The oil companies aren’t reinvesting their huge profits in ways that will reduce our oil habit.
Which word is better, “addiction” or “habit”? That is up to the writer, whose task it is to study the definitions of the two words and make a choice.
Cheers,
Tara Treasurefield
Weed Your Writing
Have you ever noticed that extraneous words crop up like weeds as you write? It’s a common phenomenon among writers. Here’s an example:
Her intuitive powers seem to fail when it matters most: when it comes to a guy she finds physically attractive.
Three of the words in this sentence, “it,” “comes,” and “to” are clutter. After weeding and rearranging a couple words, the sentence looks like this:
Her intuitive powers seem to fail when it matters most: when she finds a guy physically attractive.
To prevent weedy writing, review your drafts carefully, delete any words that don’t serve a useful purpose, and move words around as needed.
Cheers,
Tara Treasurefield
Punctuation Contest
Another contest. This time, I invite you to make the following sentence more clear by adding some punctuation and deleting one word.
The days were too short, and, strangely, tomorrow with its news reports, new bits of information, new insights, tomorrow seemed unreachable until all at once it had been there and was yesterday.
As always, I’ll publish the winner’s name in this blog.
Cheers,
Tara Treasurefield
Once is Enough
This sentence uses two words to achieve the same purpose. One would have been enough:
Frankly, I was a little more than tired of both the anticipation and the rain, too.
I found it in a mystery novel, and the sentences around it make it clear that either “both” or “too” would do:
Frankly, I was a little more than tired of both the anticipation and the rain.
Frankly, I was a little more than tired of the anticipation–and the rain, too.
Notice that I added a dash to the sentence that ends in “too”; without the dash, it would have a different meaning:
Frankly, I was a little more than tired of the anticipation and the rain, too.
Do you see the problem? Without the dash, “too” suggests that the writer isn’t the only one who is tired of the anticipation and the rain. Judging by the context, that wasn’t the writer’s intention.
Comments?
Cheers,
Tara Treasurefield
Treasurefield Communications
Creeping Clutter
Clutter creeps into our work, our homes, our relationships–and into our writing. Clutter crept into the following sentence:
By the time she hung up, they were on a first name basis and she felt as if she’d made a friend for life. She also felt as if that life was suddenly so much more uncomplicated.
This would be a less cluttered way to say the same thing:
By the time she hung up, they were on a first name basis and she felt as if she’d made a friend for life. She also felt as if life were suddenly much simpler.
What do you think of my suggested changes? Would you do it differently?
Cheers,
Tara Treasurefield
Treasurefield Communications
