Writing tips
Perfectly Write is all about helping people with their writing. Passionate about the English language, I enjoy helping writers develop their skill. Below are some tips and advice based on my experience in copywriting, book critiquing, development editing, copy-editing and proofreading.
Good writing – back to basics
Writing well, and helping other people to write well, is my job. As a professional proofreader, copy editor and copywriter, people often ask me how to write. The following is a simple guide to remind people of the basics of good writing style.
Good writing is . . .
. . . simple. Leave the complicated sentences to Dickens. There is nothing more off-putting to a reader than long, long sentences and even longer paragraphs. Keep them short and simple.
. . . organised. Your reader wants to understand easily what you are saying, without becoming frustrated and confused by a haphazard structure. Plan your writing logically before you begin, and employ that old rule from your schooldays: it needs a beginning, middle and end.
. . . to the point. There’s no surer way of losing your reader’s attention than embarking on a rambling detour off the subject. By all means add interest to your writing using examples, opinions and anecdotes, but ensure they are relevant. If you’re writing about the history of British castles, write about the history of British castles, not that time your Auntie Ethel fell in a moat.
. . . consistent. Inconsistent writing is frustrating, annoying and distracting to the reader. Watch out for inconsistencies in your meaning, and also in your writing style. If you’ve written a book with a blond protagonist called Bob Moore, your reader won’t be impressed if he suddenly becomes red-headed Rob More in chapter nine.
. . . accurate. Okay, it’s a pretty obvious point, but good writing goes hand in hand with correct writing – free from spelling and grammatical mistakes. Proofread it. And then again.
. . . descriptive. Description (by which I mean adjectives and adverbs) is an important part of good, evocative writing, but overdo it and you’ll read like you’ve swallowed a thesaurus. Consider the difference between the following: The vibrant butterfly settled on the lush leaf; The delicate, beautiful, vibrant butterfly settled and nestled slowly and happily on the green, leafy, lush leaf. The first is descriptive but simple; the second a fairly exhausting read.
. . . written with its reader in mind. If you want your writing to be effective – whether you're writing a letter to a client, a marketing leaflet, an essay, or a novel – you need to ensure you're appealing to your target reader. Your writing style, tone and choice of words need to speak directly to your reader, in their own language. Try to keep your reader in mind as you write, and read your writing back as if through their eyes.
Common punctuation mistakes
It’s pretty simple: good writing relies on correct punctuation. No matter how beautifully worded that story, how intelligent that essay, how persuasive and informative that report – if your punctuation is all over the shop, chances are no one will ever bother to read past the first line. In my work as a proofreader and copy editor I come across all manner of punctuation problems. Below are the most common mistakes I find time and time again.
Full stop: Okay, okay, it’s pretty obvious, but every sentence needs a full stop at the end. You’d be amazed how many people miss this.
Quotation marks: Whether you’re using double quotation marks (“”) or single (‘’), ensure that each time you use an opening mark, you also use a closing one.
Apostrophe: Please check this is facing the right way (remember, it looks like a 9) and that you use an apostrophe in words like can’t and won’t, as your spellchecker won't highlight these as errors.
Exclamation marks: Used at the end of a sentence, there is no need to follow an exclamation mark with a full stop (or indeed another one/two/three more exclamation marks). Suddenly, there was a crash!
Question mark: As with the exclamation mark, the question mark is never followed by a full stop when used at the end of a sentence. Where is the bus stop?
Hyphens and dashes: There is a difference between a hyphen (-) and a dash (– or —). A hyphen is used either to join words together, or to indicate a word division at the end of a line. The well-dressed man was eighty-six years old on his last birthday. The dash, which you use mid-sentence – such as here – is longer than a hyphen. You may also prefer to use the longer dash—like this and unspaced—but I generally use the shorter version, spaced. Whichever dash you prefer, be sure to stick with it and keep your writing consistent.
Overdoing it: Overuse of punctuation is a marker of weak writing. Consider the difference between the following: Bang! The man fell to the ground, dead; Bang!!!! The man fell to the ground!!!! . . . Dead!!!!! By all means use the full stop liberally, and the comma where necessary. But if your work is peppered with exclamation marks (especially multiple ones), question marks, dashes, colons, brackets or ellipses (. . .), go back and see if you can simplify some sentences.
Underdoing it: Having warned of the perils of overusing punctuation, there is also the opposite problem to address: lack of punctuation. The easiest way to check whether your writing is missing punctuation is to read it aloud – punctuation is needed where you pause as you read, so if you are going blue and gasping, chances are you could do with some more punctuation.
Top ten tips for proofreading
So you’ve slaved for hours producing your best work, be it report, letter, essay or even book. You’ve re-read and re-written until you’re cross-eyed and finally, finally you’ve reached the end and can print it, send it, submit it, publish it. . . . You’re done. Phew.
But are you? How about proofreading it? I know, I know – you’ve read it so many times it must be fine and besides, you’re sick of the sight of it. But forgo or rush that last job of proofreading and your hard work may be sadly marred by inconsistencies and mistakes.
As a professional proofreader and copy-editor, I spend many hours proofreading each week. The tips below form the basis of my own formula for effective proofreading.
Take a break: If possible, allow some time between completing your work and proofreading it – ideally overnight. That way you'll be fresher when you proofread and more likely to spot mistakes.
Proofread a hard copy: If it is feasible, print your work to proofread it. It is often easier to see mistakes on paper, away from the glare of the computer screen.
Make it clear: Use an easy-to-read font for your work, such as Times New Roman or Arial, and a large font size to make it easier for your eye to spot mistakes.
Get organised: Make a list of things to check as you proofread and tick them off as you go. For example: headings, page numbers, paragraph indents, sentence spacing and the style of certain words.
Break the proofreading down: I usually run through text quickly several times before a close read. The first time I may look purely at heading styles, the next time at layout, and so on.
Read slowly: Laborious as you may find proofreading, fast skim reading is fairly useless for spotting errors.
Isolate the text: Use a ruler or a piece of paper under the line you are reading to isolate it. This stops the eye becoming daunted by the text and skim reading.
Look words up: If in doubt, use a dictionary to check your spelling. If you don’t have a good dictionary, try an online one (but please beware Americanised spellings).
Be consistent: Inconsistency bothers readers and is distracting. So, if you’ve decided to go with ‘proofreading’ on page one, don’t write ‘proof-reading’ or 'proof reading’ on page two.
Get some proofreading help: Once you’ve proofread your work, ask a friend or colleague (or professional) to look it over as well. You may be surprised to find what you've missed – the human eye is prone to blind spots.
Spellchecker: friend or foe?
Proofreading? Who needs it when you've got a spellchecker? We all have it, most of us use it, many of us swear by it: the spellchecker is the computer's modern-day answer to proofreading. But just how much should we trust this tool?
There’s no doubt that the spellchecker can be useful in catching those random typos, saving you from ‘embarasing errers’ in your writing. But if you’re going to use a spellchecker, it’s essential to be aware of their limitations as well, or your writing will be far from perfect.
As a professional copy editor and proofreader, part of my job is to ensure my clients’ material is written accurately. The vast majority of the time, the work I am passed has been spellchecked by the client beforehand, and yet I will still find countless mistakes in their material. Why?
Well, spellcheckers can tell you whether a word is correctly spelt, but not whether it is properly used. For example, your spellchecker will have no problem with: The bra was nosy and full off smock (The bar was noisy and full of smoke), and You’re diner is their (Your dinner is there). In addition, most British computers come with an Americanised spellchecker, which will delight in telling you to change ‘colour’ to ‘color’, and ‘travelled’ to ‘traveled’.
So, in practice your spellchecker will miss many, many mistakes. And if you think that’s bad, watch out for the accompanying grammar checker. While it will helpfully point out the odd double space mid-sentence, it will completely miss gems like The companies what make it programmes should big improve her gram cheques (The companies that make IT programs should greatly improve their grammar checks).
In view of these limitations, it’s clear that while spellcheckers have their uses, it is foolish to rely on them entirely. In the ‘good old days’ people relied on two essential tools to ensure their writing was accurate: their dictionary and their eyes. I’m afraid there is no substitute for this age-old winning formula. By all means use your spellchecker, but carefully and with a degree of suspicion, and then follow it up with a slow, thorough proofread.
Writing for the web
Just as a business report demands a very different writing style from an article in a girlie mag, so writing for websites has developed into a writing ‘genre’, complete with a certain style and formula for success. Below are some pointers I use for web copywriting.
Know your audience: A very important starting point when writing for a website is to know who your audience is, and then write in a style which will appeal to them. Tone, structure, choice of language and even punctuation will be affected by your audience.
Relax: One of the reasons I enjoy copywriting for websites is that this genre of writing allows more freedom and creativity than, say, writing for a company brochure. The tone of web writing is generally more informal, as though your reader is closer to you through the computer screen. This friendly approach can be used to good effect in building relationships with visitors to your site, especially if your site is commercial. Having said that, it's important to maintain a level of professionalism within your copywriting, and not overstep the mark.
Keep it simple: Nowhere is it more important to simplify your writing than on a website. A web copywriter should keep it short and to the point. No long sentences and no long paragraphs: if you need to convey a lot of information, break it down into sections or lists. You will lose your reader’s interest if their eyes are overloaded with a mass of weighty text.
Use keywords wisely: If you’re writing for a website and it's important that the site be popular in search engines, you need to keep your keywords in mind. The trick is to cleverly weave these words into your text. Don’t just plonk them anywhere and everywhere so that your reader is assaulted by a barrage of keywords (very obvious and off-putting) – work on the text to integrate them. So, if my keyword is ‘copywriting’, I wouldn't overdo it as in: My copywriting business involves copywriting for charities and copywriting for corporate clients. Instead, I would try to work ‘copywriting’ in every few sentences, but only where it made sense to include it (have a look back over this article now and you’ll see what I mean).
Get it 'perfectly write': There's nothing more off-putting to a reader than typos. Proofread your text several times. You may find it hard to notice typos on a screen, so print off the copy, take a break, and then read it through on paper.
Words to watch
The English language has a plethora of words which look and sound very similar and are easy to confuse and misuse. In my work as a proofreader and editor, I come across plenty of confusion over these words. Below are some of the main ones to watch out for in your writing.
Affect or effect? Affect means to make a difference to (I am not affected by what you are saying). Effect means to bring about a result (The effects of the storm were widespread).
For ever or forever? For ever means ‘for always’ (I will be your friend for ever). Forever means ‘continually’ (He was forever missing the bus).
It’s or its? It’s is the contracted form of ‘it is’ (It’s a sunny day today.) Its means ‘belonging to it’ (The dog ate its dinner).
Know or no? To know means to understand (I know how to cook). No is the opposite of yes (No, I don’t want to go out).
Licence or license? Licence is the noun (I have a driving licence). License is the verb (Are you licensed to serve alcohol)?
Of or off? Of indicates possession or association (The coat of my brother.) Off is the opposite of on (Did I turn the oven off)?
Principle or principal? Principle is a noun meaning ‘basic truth or guideline’ (Vegetarians avoid meat on principle). Principal can be an adjective or a noun meaning ‘first in rank or importance’ (She is the principal dancer in the ballet).
Their or there or they’re? Their means ‘belonging to them’ (The girls played with their toys). There is the opposite of here (The book is over there). They're is short for ‘they are’ (They’re going to the seaside).
To or two or too? To is a preposition (We’re going to the zoo). Two is a number (The animals went in two by two). Too means ‘also’ (I like chocolate too).
Whether or weather? Whether sets out alternatives (I don’t know whether to walk or catch the bus). Weather means the climate (Scotland has wet weather).
Where or wear or were? Where attaches to a location (Where is London?). Wear is a verb meaning ‘to be dressed in’ (What are you wearing to the party?). Were is the past tense of the verb ‘to be’ (Were you at work yesterday?).
Your or you’re? Your means ‘belonging to you’ (Where is your coat?). You’re is short for ‘you are’ (I think you’re right).