Hello Sparkle Writers! Welcome to another Grammar Series. We hope you’ve been learning from our previous posts. Today we want to share 10 ways you can improve your writing instantly. These are little changes you can make to your use of grammar that will make a big difference in the quality of your writing. Are you ready?
1. Prepositions (after, towards, against etc) are not words to end sentences with. Try to use them either at the beginning or in the middle of your sentences.
2. Avoid cliches like a plague. Why write, “As busy as a bee” when this expression has been overused. Be more creative.
3. Do not use more words than necessary. It’s superfluous and actually takes away from the true meaning that you intended your words to have.
4. Avoid profanity as much as you can. Use it sparingly and only when necessary.
5. The passive voice should ideally be avoided. We’ve discussed this on the blog before.
6. Depending on the nature of what you are writing, avoid colloquialisms if possible.
7. Let your use of alliterations be limited. Alliteration is the repetition of the same sound or letter at the beginning of each or most of the words in a sentence. For example, ” Anxious ants avoid the anteater’s advances.” Imagine how your work will be if it is filled with a lot of this.
8. Do not abbreviate. Try as much as possible to use the full meaning. If it is something you will use several times, then you can abbreviate from the second use.
9. Be mindful of how you use contractions (don’t, won’t, can’t). Do not over do it.
10. When in doubt about a word, phrase or grammatical expression, rephrase your sentence to avoid using that word. Better to be safe than sorry
See you next week!
