Today’s Ask Dr. Diane: What are some things I can do to improve my blogging and writing skills?
The Internet has turned lot of people into writers. Bloggers and social media junkies may have great ideas to share but may lack some writing skills that could help improve the message they want to convey. I know I make a lot of mistakes when I write. I try not to, but when you blog as much as I do, it is inevitable. I never intended to be a writer. However, I found that I liked sharing information, so writing became a means to an end. When I write my books, I use a professional editor. Not all of us can be editing experts. It could be very expensive and inconvenient to have to use an editor for every blog and social media posting. However, there are some simple things that can help to improve writing skills.
1. Don’t End Sentences in Prepositions. The problem is that many people have no idea what a preposition is. Susan Thurman, author of The Only Grammar Book You’ll Ever Need, claims there is a trick to helping recognize a preposition. “Look at the last eight letters of the word preposition; they spell position. A preposition sometimes tells the position of something: in, out, under, over, above and so forth.” My seventh grade teacher suggested we think about a box. For example: in the box, over the box, and so forth. The following are the most common prepositions according to Thurman. Try to avoid ending a sentence with any of these words:
- About
- Above
- Across
- After
- Against
- Along
- Among
- Around
- At
- Before
- Behind
- Below
- Beneath
- Beside
- Between
- Beyond
- But
- By
- Concerning
- Despite
- Down
- During
- Except
- For
- From
- In
- Inside
- Into
- Like
- Of
- Off
- On
- Onto
- Out
- Outside
- Over
- Past
- Since
- Through
- Throughout
- To
- Toward
- Under
- Underneath
- Until
- Up
- Upon
- With
- Within
- Without
2. Learn to Spell without Spell Check. If you rely too much on a spell checker, you may find that words you meant to write are replaced with words that have entirely different meanings. I can’t count how many times that a student has sent me a note saying to “please excuse the incontinence”. It is best if you take the time to learn to spell correctly so that you don’t have to rely on a device that may change your intended meaning. The following are fifty of the most commonly misspelled words according to author Gary Provost of 100 Ways to Improve Your Writing:
- Acceptable
- Apology
- Appetite
- Architect
- Assassinate
- Autumn
- Calendar
- Changeable
- Conscious
- Correspondence
- Criticism
- Deceive
- Discernible
- Embarrass
- Eminent
- Existence
- Fascinate
- Grateful
- Hygiene
- Imaginable
- Immediately
- Irrelevant
- Jewelry
- Judgment
- Lovable
- Miscellaneous
- Mischievous
- Mortgage
- Necessarily
- Occasionally
- Occurrence
- Omission
- Orchestra
- Potatoes
- Professor
- Pseudonym
- Quarrelsome
- Religious
- Reservoir
- Rhythmic
- Scissors
- Syllable
- Tragedy
- Umbrella
- Vanilla
- Vengeance
- Weird
- Wholesome
- Youthful
- Zealot
3. Vary your sentence length. Some of my students like to write in either really long run-on sentences or overly short monotonous sentences. Try to vary your sentence length. Notice how the first sentence in this paragraph was longer and more complex. That was followed by a shorter more succinct sentence. It makes your writing easier to read if you vary the sentence length and mix it up a bit.
4. Ask yourself some questions once you have finished your draft. Does the initial paragraph let the reader know what your paper, blog or article is going to contain? Do you have needless repetition of ideas? Is your tone and tense consistent? Does one paragraph advance to the next in a smooth fashion? Does each of your paragraphs contain a topic sentence that conveys the thought you have developed throughout that paragraph?
5. Work on expanding your vocabulary. Rather than learning overly complicated words to express what you want to say, try varying the way that you say things by using a thesaurus. If you are talking about a house, perhaps refer to that house as a dwelling or a building in the next sentence. If you find that you are using the same word over and over, check out some alternatives words in a thesaurus to add dimension to your writing.
I know I am guilty of making some of these mistakes. Through practice, we can all improve our skills.
Related Articles
- Writing is a Challenge, not a Chore (blogs.sitepoint.com)
- How to Respond Effectively in Online Discussions (drdianehamilton.wordpress.com)
- 7 Deadly Sins of Blogging (fathomseo.com)
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