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- 6 Killer Writing Tips from a Great-Grandmother of a Copy Editor
This guest post is by Aman Basanti of Ageofmarketing.com.
Meet Ailsa Campbell. Ailsa is a great grandmother of an editor (pun intended): she’s been teaching English longer than many of us have been alive. Needless to say she knows a thing or two about writing well.
Here are Ailsa's top tips for becoming a better writer.
1. Get your homophones right
“Homophone” sounds like an alien word, but you use homophones every day, and often incorrectly.
Homophones are words that sound the same (homo—same, phone—speech sound) but have different meanings. Here are some common homophones that bloggers get wrong.
- compliment—to praise (e.g. when you tell your partner that he or she looks great)
- complement—to balance, set off or add to (red wine complements Italian food)
- right—correct
- right—the opposite of left
- rite—ritual or ceremony
- write—putting pen to paper
- effect—(noun) end result or consequence (the breakup of the marriage had the effect of driving him to drink)
- affect—(noun) impact (the affect the drought had on the local farmers was unfathomable)
- descent—plunge, fall or ancestry (humans trace their descent from apes)
- dissent—disagreement, opposition or dispute (some people express their dissent to the idea that humans descended from apes … and are quite right—humans and apes are descended from a common ancestor)
- dependent—reliant on (the answer to the second question was highly dependent on the answer to the first)
- dependant—a person who depends on others (the poor guy has 13 dependants). Note that this term is mainly used in British English; American English accepts “dependent” for both spellings.
Ensure that you are using the right homophone.
2. Know when to use a “c” and when to use an “s”
Is it practice or a practise? Is it advice or advise? Is it licence or license?
Answer: “c” is for nouns and “s” is for verbs. Remember "c" for "ice" and "s" for "see".
When you play tennis, you practise your swing. When you run a social media business, you run a social media practice. Again, this is mainly a British English differentiation. In the US, it’s standard to use to use the “c” spelling in both cases.
When you guide someone to do something, you are advising them. When you receive instructions from your client, you receive advice.
Licence is permission to do something. Giving that permission to someone is licensing them to do it. Although in America, both usages use the “s” spelling, license.
Use “c” for naming words and “s” for doing words.
3. Understand terse phrases
Terse phrases are short punchy sentences to give your writing a sense of urgency. For example:
Favreau was blown away. How did this guy pull off such a feat? Was there anything this man couldn't do?
"Using them in groups of three," explains Ailsa, "as in the example above, gives a great sense of build–up.
"If you listen to Barack Obama, who is one of the greatest orators of the day, you will notice he often uses groups of three. This is not chance. He has studied it and worked at it.
"The use of three terse phrases was an oratorical trick taught by the Ancient Greeks, to capture the audience's attention and reinforce a point without making it tedious. Apply it to writing too."
4. Know how to use contractions to bring your writing to life
In the publishing world, using informal abbreviations and contractions (weren’t, aren't, can't, etc.) signifies a very informal type of writing. Contractions are not acceptable in, for example, a serious article about current affairs. They sound sloppy.
Even in less formal writing, they are better avoided unless you are very specifically wanting to sound "chatty."
Where contractions are useful, however, is in quotes and dialogue or when you are giving someone's thoughts. The use of contractions in dialogue allows the character's voice to come through, which is a great way to bring your writing to life.
Consider the sentence, "They couldn't put a finger on it but there was something about Mike." The shortened form is very good here, because you are giving their thoughts—less formal language is right.
5. Do not put an “a” in front of numeric values
Do not say, “a 127 people chose option b,” or that “the suit cost a $100.” Just say, “127 people chose option b,” or “the suit cost $100.”
Also be mindful when writing monetary values. Do not write “$100 dollars,” just keep it to “$100.” You have already said "dollars" by using the sign $.
6. Know how to use apostrophes
What is wrong with the sentences below?
- He was selling chocolates to the participant's.
- The Lindt's were a better choice.
- Vast majority of Australian residents already had HD TV's and little content to view on them.
- They were a well-known group in the 1960's.
Answer: The apostrophe is incorrectly used in place of a plural. It should be participants, Lindts, TVs, and 1960s.
There are two uses for the apostrophe—in shortened forms, indicating a verb (it's, couldn't) and in possessives (Age of Marketing is Basanti's brainchild).
What should we do when a possessive is also a plural?
The participants' job was to choose between two options.
Here the participant is a plural and a possessive, so you place the apostrophe after the “s.” If the participant was singular, you would place it before the “s.”
Of all the mistakes, this one seems by far the most important to Ailsa, as is evidenced by her comment, "Dammit—if you don't stop using apostrophes when you mean plurals, I shall murder you." In her defense, I did get that wrong a lot.
Conclusion
It is these minor distinctions that, as Ailsa likes to say, “separate the sheep from the goats.” Get them right and your writing will be more fluent and engaging. Get them wrong and you will look silly, sloppy, and uneducated—not how you want your readers to see you.
Do you make any of these common mistakes in your writing?
Aman Basanti writes about the psychology of buying and teaches you how you can use the principles of consumer psychology to boost your sales. Visit www.Ageofmarketing.com/free-ebook to get his new ebook—Marketing to the Pre-Historic Mind: How the Hot New Science of Behavioural Economics Can Help You Boost Your Sales—for FREE.
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
6 Killer Writing Tips from a Great-Grandmother of a Copy Editor
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This guest post is by Chris The Traffic Blogger.
I can tell you a thousand ideas I have on how to be creative and when/where to write, but I struggle to create a list of times when you shouldn't write. Most authors advise that you create articles during the good times and the bad in order to do two things: Improve upon your writing skill and increase the diversity of your writing. With that being said, is there ever a bad time to write then?
Blogging while distracted
Here is the first thing that came to mind regarding a time when you shouldn't be writing. Focus is a hard thing to come by these days, especially with the increased speed of technology. If you don't turn off that smart phone, unplug from tweetdeck and mute the television, well you're going to be interrupted quite a bit when you try to write.
Copyright Sergiy Serdyuk - Fotolia.com
Writing while distracted is a lot like texting while driving. It's dangerous, your focus is split so your content is not optimal and there are far more chances for accidents than under normal writing conditions. Don't blog while distracted. Take the time to apply focus and effort to your work.
When I created the post, Explosive Backlink Strategy, I wrote an entire draft of it without unplugging myself from all the previously mentioned distractions. I repeated sentences, created broken links, had grammatical errors galore and left many ideas unsupported. Worst of all however, was the fact that I had written far too much!
When you think about it, it's a miracle that we accomplish anything at all with all the Facebook chimes going off on our phones and other mediums desperately calling for our attention. Instead of writing less in these conditions, I tend to write more! And we all know that online readers prefer concise, helpful information.
After unplugging myself, I was able to refine my article to the core ideas that mattered and scrubbed all the errors. That's the difference between being focused on one thing and having your attention split amongst many things.
Keeping a schedule
The key to avoiding being distracted is to remove the distractions during the period of time you wish to write. This takes planning, since distractions are often unplanned issues which you need to deal with in a timely manner. If you plan ahead and schedule of block of time to write, you are far less likely to be interrupted, especially if you take care of anything that needs doing beforehand. Stay focused and you'll write far better than you would while distracted or on a limited time budget.
For the blogs I run, I tend to keep a very strict schedule as to when I write every single day. The moment I have woken up and had some much needed java, I write at least a few ideas down for articles I'd like to flesh out later on. Sometimes I write whole posts, but usually just ideas. Then, throughout the day, I turn those ideas into main concepts and supportive ideas soon follow.
Sometimes I write five posts a day, other times I jot down just the ideas for several. The point isn't to finish a post every day, but rather, to take the time to think and write at least something before I do anything else every single day.
Blogging while extreme
Once again, the root problem that I suggest avoiding while blogging is a lack of focus. When you are angry, emotional, and upset, you will tend to focus on the wrong feelings as you write. Perhaps you won't have any focus, just a blind anger that directs your article for you and feeds your creative thinking. This is a bad thing. A very bad thing. Cooling down and getting the proper focus back is important to avoiding writing while angry.
Always remember to put your audience first and avoid the personal feelings you have towards comments, emails and other bloggers alike. Keep things professional and write when you can afford to be emotionally focused on the right goals for your blog.
I've had my scrapes with fellow bloggers in the past, particularly very jealous ones, and I must say that it is far wiser to ignore someone than it is to try to get into a mudslinging contest. Even if you are 100% right and the other person is completely wrong, everyone gets dirty when the mud starts flying.
My advice for anyone who has copycats and jerks following them around the way I do is to ignore them. Don't publish their comments, don't respond to their emails and don't publish responses on your blog. Just act as if they do not exist and keep on doing things better than they do. For heaven's sake, don't write while angry at someone as it always ends poorly for you!
What about the reverse of anger… happiness? Should you write while extremely happy? I would suggest not simply because your focus is once again blurred or ultra-centered on the wrong thing. I've written some awful, assuming posts while very happy that came back to bite me in the past.
For example, I had to rewrite the first chapter of The Why People Course because I wrote it while extremely excited to be writing my first book. After reading it I came across as way to hopeful and impossibly optimistic, to the point that most people would probably read it and say “yeah right, that’s wishful thinking.” Even though the numbers and statistics were real for me, they might be impossible for others, so I ended up rewriting the chapter when my focus was more on my potential audience and less on myself.
Focus is the key in blogging without distraction, whether the distraction comes from external or internal forces. Write with focus and write well! And please, don't blog while distracted!
Have you ever blogged while distracted? Tell us what happened in the comments.
Chris is a self proclaimed expert at showing bloggers how they can get traffic, build communities, make money online and be successful. You can find out more at The Traffic Blogger.
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
Don't Drive Your Blog Distracted
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