Brush up your writing skills! 
by Dan Rzewnicki, Editor in Chief
January 23, 2012
I would bet my next paycheck (maybe) that you despise writing. I would also bet that your writing often, or even always, disappoints you. Have no fear! While I have earned no degree that qualifies me to teach you about writing, I believe I have taken enough classes and read and written enough to help you eliminate some of the suck from your writing.
Let’s start with your vocabulary. Most of you know all of the words you need to sound sophisticated and allow your writing to flow. Reading the dictionary for hours will not provide you with a vocabulary that will suddenly spice up your writing. Furthermore, trying to sound sophisticated or using “big” words makes your writing seem fake or staged. Sitting at the computer with a thesaurus (a synonym dictionary for those who think it is some kind of dinosaur) and simply substituting fancier words for simple ones will not work if you don’t know what a word means or suggests. If your writing doesn’t sound like you, then you tried much too hard to take on a new you. And trust me, everyone reading your writing will know too.
Next, let’s talk about verbs. Verbs provide action and life to the subjects of your paper. And who doesn’t want more action and a better life? Unfortunately, forms of the verb “be” (am, is, are, was, were, be, been, being) do not show anything. They link and they tell. Eliminate all, or as many as possible, “be” verbs from your writing. They weaken the actions of your subjects, and help very little with descriptions. Take this sentence for instance: She is fat. How fat? Furthermore, the definitions of “fat” would vary if you asked an 80-pound female and a 300-pound man. The “be” verb fails to describe anything. So don’t tell. Show. Try this instead: “She tips the scale at over 500 pounds, had once lost a cell phone under a large flap of fat on the upper part of her stomach, and hasn’t seen her toes since senior prom.” Get the picture now?
Eliminate passive voice. After you cure your addiction to the convenience of be verbs, you must cure your addiction to the passive voice – a “voice” which has nothing to do with your vocal chords. The passive voice serves as the lazy man’s way to write. Good news though, curing your addiction to “be” verbs and the passive voice often comes at a two-for-one deal. The passive voice leaves the subject buried in sentence while someone or something does something to the subject. Sound confusing? That’s what passive voice does to the readers – confuse them. For example:
- Passive: The unfortunate victim was killed with a hammer to his skull.
- Active: A hammer to the skull killed the unfortunate victim.
Active voice is simple and direct – and there’s nothing wrong with that kind of writing. Eliminating the passive voice focuses on the action, thus providing more excitement. Furthermore, you’ve eliminated the “be” verb “was” by switching the order of the sentence to make it active. Congratulations! You just killed two birds (or Joe, in this case, who happened to be the unfortunate murder victim) with one hammer.
Dump adverbs. I would also suggest eliminating many adverbs from your writing. Adverbs usually end in –ly and modify verbs, and once again serve as the lazy man’s route to overusing “one size fits all” verbs. Instead of saying “he walked quickly” or “slowly” or “laboriously”, you might simply say “he hurried,” or “trudged” or “crawled.” Eliminating adverbs allows for a more concise, to-the-point sentence and a more descriptive sentence, while also leaving some interpretation up to the reader’s imagination.
Proofread and rewrite. Lastly, we must discuss proofreading and rewriting. Never, under any circumstances, should you turn in a paper without proofreading it. You can always write something better than what you produced on your first try. However, you should also not finish a paper then immediately proofread it. If you proofread directly after finishing, then you will read what you meant instead of what you wrote. I recommend allowing your paper to sit for at least a few hours or even a few days. Now, when you re-read your paper, you will catch misspellings and grammatical errors, as well as holes in your argument or story that you could drive a truck through. Although proofreading a few days after you’ve written a composition will mean you can’t procrastinate and write a paper the night or even the period before it is due, you could save your grade and some embarrassment because of the stupid mistakes you overlook when you don’t proofread at all.
Obviously we have only reached the tip of the iceberg when it comes to improving your writing. However, we have classes available that offer a more in-depth look at writing and improving your writing. Nevertheless, you can utilize the tips I provided to “quickstart” your writing rehab. Even if you follow only one of the tips, you will find more enjoyment and rewards in the writing you produce and the grades it earns you as well.
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