The Merriam – Webster on-line dictionary has put together a very useful Top 10 List of the most commonly confused words. Here’s the list:
Flaunt / Flout
Affect / Effect
Deserts / Desserts
Stationary / Stationery
Flak / Flack
It’s / Its
Pore / Pour
Fewer / Less
Flounder / Founder
Principal / Principle
Here’s the link to [...]
This is a great reference website for your work (all writers will find this very useful).
http://www.confusingwords.com/
Confusing Words is a collection of 3210 words that are troublesome to readers and writers. Words are grouped according to the way they are most often confused or misused. Some of these words are homonyms (words that sound [...]
I couldn’t refer to authors’ rules on effective writing without mentioning my favourite writer and his perspective on what makes great writing. Ernest Hemingway wrote a lot about writing. Here’s a few rules from the Master on what it takes to write well.
1. Use short sentences and short first paragraphs.
2. Use vigorous English - [...]
George Orwell wrote a 1946 essay entitled, Politics and the English Language, in which he laid out five rules for effective writing. Here they are:
1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If [...]
In a letter to D. W. Bowser, in 1880, Mark Twain described what he saw as quality writing:
I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English - it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don’t let fluff [...]
Here are great, American author Mark Twain’s rules for quality writing, taken from his scathing essay on the Literary Offenses of James Fenimore Cooper.
1. A tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere.
2. The episodes of a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help develop it.
3. The personages in [...]
Here’s a renown American writer, on his skill - his art form - of writing.
1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, [...]
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Recently I have been asked about the skill of writing and what makes for an exceptional writer. In the engrossing discussion that ensued a distinction was made between writers and wordsmiths. For the purposes of introducing this subject matter, I suppose this could be best characterized as the line between writing for oneself as [...]
Friday, February 19, 2010
Further to Chris Hedges’ argument within Empire of Illusion, here is his thought on the role of the Internet as a contributing factor in the devolution of our society. In a piece entitled, “The Information Super-Sewer”, Hedges contends that our society and man’s ability to properly communicate are threatened in having virtual realities replace the real world. He begins [...]
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Here’s the crux of the argument presented in Empire of Illusion, a disturbingly invigorating book on the demise of our North American society.
The more we sever ourselves from a literate, print-based world, a world of complexity and nuance, a world of ideas, for one informed by comforting, reassuring images, fantasies, slogans, celebrities, and [...]