Writing well (for the rest of us): No Grammar. No Rules. Just Common Sense. (4 page)

There is a matter of style when it comes to bullet points,
so not everything has to be perfect. Just look at the bullet points to see if
they are neat, uncluttered and logical.

Give it a night. And read it aloud.
If you’re not under a deadline, a good idea is put aside what you’ve written,
and read it with fresh eyes the next day.  Another tip is one that many
professional business writers do: they read the text aloud to themselves. It’s
often amazing how a mistake will pop-out when text is read aloud, which is
never caught when reading silently.

How to write
Years ago, when I was first starting in my career, I had a writing
assignment from my boss. I was embarrassed to ask “what do I write?” His
answer? Just
start
and write what you would normally say to someone.

It’s good advice. Just
start
. Write as if you’re
talking to the person being written to, and the words will start to flow. Then,
go back and polish things up to make it all look good.

The key is start writing. By writing, you develop your
style. And write
a lot
.

Joseph Devlin, who wrote a masterpiece in 1910 on writing,
has some wonderful words on the subject of writing. Take them to heart (I’ve
edited them a bit for modern language):

“The best way to learn to write is to sit down and write,
just as the best way how to learn to ride a bicycle is to ride it. Write first
about common things, subjects that are familiar to you.

Never hunt for subjects, there are thousands around you.
Describe what you saw yesterday— a fire, a horse, a dog-fight on the street.
Imitate the best writers in their style, but not in their exact words. Know
what you write about, write about what you know.

To know you must study. The world is an open book…nature
is one great book, the pages of which are open to anyone.

Don't think that a college education is necessary to
succeed as a writer. Far from it. Some of college men are dead-heads, useless
to the world and to themselves. A man may know so much of everything that he
knows little of anything.

If you are poor, that is not a bad thing but an
advantage. Poverty is an incentive, not a drawback. Better to be born with a
good, working brain in your head than with a silver spoon in your mouth.

Employers are constantly on the lookout for good talkers,
those who are able to attract the public and convince others by the force of
their language.

It is possible for everyone to become a correct speaker
if he persists and take a little care.

Listen to the best speakers and note carefully the words
which impress you most.”

---

There’s a bit of an art to writing well. It comes from
reading a lot and from practicing a lot. You’ll develop your style over time,
but remember to keep the basics in there.

Practice good writing and it will help you in life. It will
help you in telling stories and facts, and to think more logically.

Punctuation.

It comes from a Latin word meaning “inserting pauses in
writing.”

Get that?
Pauses.

Periods. Commas.

Pauses.

There is a tale about a wonderful writer, James Thurber,
when asked about his use of a comma:

"Why did you have a comma in
the sentence, 'After dinner, the men went into the living-room'?"
"This particular comma," Thurber explained, "was a way of giving
the men time to push back their chairs and stand up.”

(This story comes from a great book about punctuation,
Eats,
Shoots & Leaves
.)

Punctuation has now come to mean all the little symbols we
use to make text understandable and, sometimes, more interesting.

Period
A period (.) ends a sentence.

Comma
A comma (,) creates a pause in the text. There is more to the use of a
comma, but if you keep to this simple definition for now, it will get you a
long way (just don’t go crazy and overuse them).

Exclamation mark
 
An exclamation mark (!) shows strong emotion or shouting, but don’t overuse it.
Use it only when you really need to!

Question mark
 
A question mark (?) turns a sentence into a question.

Colon
 
A colon (:) is used to list out a number of things in a sentence.

Three people came
to the party: Bill, Tony, and Sue.

It can also be used to give more information, as long as the
part after the colon can act as a sentence on its own:

I’m looking for a copy of this
book: one of my friends wants to read it.

You can also use colons to greet someone in a formal
business letter:

Dear Mr. Roberts:

(Never use a semicolon in this situation. For informal
letters, use a comma instead of a colon.)
You do not need to capitalize the word that comes after the colon, unless it
would normally be capitalized. (There are times when you would capitalize the
first word, but generally, you’ll be totally fine if you don’t.)

Semicolon
 
A semicolon (;) makes two sentences into one; I use this one a lot. Two
separate thoughts mashed into one! Yummy!

Ellipses
 
Ellipses comes from a Latin word meaning “to leave out.” and shows that
some text has been removed.

“Bob ate the whole sandwich” can be
changed to “Bob ate the…sandwich.”

Ellipses are also handy to just… create a pause… in the
text…as if words are going unspoken. (This use is frowned upon by grammar police, and you shouldn’t overuse it, but it can create a nice effect in your
writing when used carefully.)

Ellipses are always three periods. It is such a common error
for writers to use five periods, or two, or six, that if I had a dime for every
time I spotted it, I’d be really rich. Unfortunately, I won’t get rich this way
(and doing a cheap book isn’t going to help, either).

Parentheses
 
Parentheses come from a Latin word meaning “putting beside.” and are the
symbols ( ). They are used to give a bit more information about something, or
to make a remark about something. They are a useful tool that can be used to
create a nice effect in your writing, or to clarify something.

Bill made it to the meeting on time
(this was a first).

Joanie
(who had hit her head
earlier that evening)
did not appear happy at the party.

There are some minor errors you can make with parentheses
that are not worth discussing here. Keep in mind, however, that sometimes a
comma can be used instead of parentheses, and that choice is yours. And, like
everything in writing, don’t overuse parentheses.

Now, if a sentence is on its own, in parentheses, the period
goes
inside
the parentheses.

Joanie laughed out
loud.
(She rarely laughed.)

Otherwise, the period goes
outside
the parenthesis.

Joanie laughed out
loud
(she rarely laughed).

Notice that a different feeling and idea can be communicated
by how you write. Both of the above examples are acceptable English; they are simply different ways to communicate the same thing.

Quotation marks
Quotation marks (“ ”) are used primarily to show that someone is speaking.

“Hello,” said Gary,
“how are you?”

You also use quotation marks to show that a word is not part
of the rest of the sentence:

The word “love”
comes from German.

You can also use them to be ironic:

               The “cure” caused him to get very ill. 

Use quotes (or
italics
) for titles of books, magazines,
new technical words, special or unusual words, and so on:

The book “Call of the Wild” is one
of the great American novels.
This was a method of torture known as
enhanced interrogation
.

If a quote is inside a quote, use a single quotation mark:

“He told me ‘the British are
coming’ and I laughed,” said Tom.

Punctuation marks go inside the quotes:

“What’s up, Joanie?” asked Tom.
“Nothing important,” said Joanie.
I spent my spare time reading “Oil Drilling News.”

(This is the American English way of doing it; it’s done
differently in Britain, where you put the punctuation marks outside of the
quotes.)

Dashes and hyphens
A hyphen is different than a dash. A hyphen is short. A dash is longer.
Each do different things.

-
A hyphen is the "
-
" key on your
keyboard.

Use a hyphen to create compound words, joining two words to
make a new one:

off-campus
Janet Hall-Wilkinson
merry-go-round

Use a hyphen for numbers that do not show a range of numbers
(a range of numbers would be something like “1 through 10.” which I discuss
further below). Keep your hyphens to things like phone and social security
numbers:

111-55-1111
800-555-1212

Use a hyphenated word to make things clearer to the reader.
Look at this sentence:

He filled out the
stolen vehicle form.

It’s confusing. You would use a hyphen to
make it clearer: 

He filled out the
stolen-vehicle
form.

What you’re actually doing in this case is using a hyphen to create an adjective from two words.

Here is another example:

He lived in a
well-planned
community.

(Never use a hyphen when one of the words ends with “-ly.”)

It’s not a crime to create words with hyphens that are new
to people:

He worked with
computer-generated
art.

Interestingly, many hyphenated words become, themselves,
single words:

Wet-suit
became
wetsuit.
Black-bird
became
blackbird
.

As a last note, hyphens never have spaces on either side.

–
An en-dash is a bit longer than a hyphen (it’s called “en” because it is about the same size as the letter “n” in older
printing machines).

En-dash means “through.” So you would use it for ranges of
things:

July–August
pages 12–15

—
An em-dash is used to replace a comma or
parentheses (it’s called “em” because it is about the same size of the letter
“m” in older printing machines).

Using em dashes makes for a lively, fast-paced kind of
writing.

He went to the store – the big
store in the mall – to get what he wanted.

I don’t think it particularly matters if you have a space
before or after en and em dashes. I think it’s a matter of style. Hyphens,
however, never have spaces.

Most word processors will automatically create an em dash when you type a word, a space, two hyphens, another space and then a word. For en
dashes, type a word, space, hyphen, space, word.

I’ve dedicated a short chapter to the
apostrophe
,
since it is the most misunderstood punctuation mark of all.  

The apostrophe is the
'
sign in a word. It means
something (a letter or letters) has been
removed
.

That’s
all
it means.

If you get one thing out of this book, it’s to understand
how an apostrophe is supposed to work!

Apostrophes are used in two different ways: To show a word
has been created from two words (contraction) and to show possession.

Contraction
In English, we contract (join) words to be a little lazy. “We are” becomes
“we’re.” The apostrophe shows that the letter “a” has been removed.

But it’s confusing, because contracted words sound the same
as other words.

We’re
sounds the same as
were
or
where
.
It’s
sounds the same as
its
.
They’re
sounds the same as
their
.
You’re
sounds the same as
your
.

You will need to know the differences so that you too don’t
make these common mistakes.

Possession
An apostrophe is also used to show possession (ownership). As I discussed
earlier in this book, possession a very interesting concept in grammar. You can make it clear that someone or something “possesses” something. Get the
concept of “possession” and you’ll really get this one. It’s not always
literally
possessing something. It’s more of an
idea
of possession.

However, even in possession,
the apostrophe
is
still removing a letter
, and this fact is not understood by most people.
Listen up: you will soon be smarter than about 95% of your friends.

In older English, the way you showed possession was to add
“es” to a word. For example, there’s a book by a fellow named Henry Chaucer, written 700 years ago. Here is something he wrote:

Christes gospel

He showed that it was the gospel of Christ by adding “es.”

Later, people just took out the “e” but showed it had been
removed by using an apostrophe.

Christ’s gospel.

Neater, tidier, quicker, cleaner.

Here is another example of the idea of possession, using an
apostrophe:

This is the house that Jim owns.
This is
Jim’s
house.

We know Jim possesses (owns) it.

Or:

The house had bright lights.
The
house’s
bright lights.

The house doesn’t actually “possess” bright lights, but it’s
the
idea
of possession.

There are a few simple rules for apostrophes used in
possession:

For a noun showing one thing (singular), add
’s
at
the end.

The
horse’s
hair.
Tom’s
shirt.

For a plural noun already ending in “s.” simply add an
apostrophe at the end.

Guys’
night
out.

Plurals
A common mistake is to use an apostrophe to make something plural (more
than one).

For example:

The two
boy’s
went to the store.

This is a mistake. Remember, an apostrophe means a letter
has been
removed
. It should be:

The two boys went
to the store.

Here are some examples of the correct use of apostrophes
with plurals. We’ll start with the simple example of a horse.

A
horse
– a single horse.
Two
horses
– more than one horse

Then, a single horse, showing possession:

A
horse’s
tail – the tail of a horse.

But what if we want to describe several horses possessing
something? In older English, we would have added “-es” at the end:

The horseses
tails.

But that’s older English and honestly, it looks ridiculous!
Because we’re hip and modern, we use an apostrophe to remove the whole “-es” at
the end.

The horses’
tails – the tails of the horses.

These are the important rules for apostrophes. There are
more rules which you can look up online if you like.