Helpful Hints for Writing Correctly

[heidi]

The Firefox browser has a great feature that helps with spelling and capitalization. Members who would like to write better English will find a free download here:

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

And if something is misspelled, you will notice a little red line under the word. You can right click on the misspelled word, and the application will give you the correct spelling or choices of correctly spelled words to choose from. Try it!

Another way to improve your posts is to compose your posts in Microsoft Word, and then copy and paste them into the forum. With Word you will find similar features plus a thesaurus (shift + F7) and a grammar checker (F7) to help you express yourself in the clearest fashion.

But beware! Don't depend solely on a spell checker. Those spell checkers can be tricky!

Here's a little poem about computer spell checking:

Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.

[heidi]

And even though we don't expect you to all write like professionals, as some of us are, here are some great writing tips.

WRITING TIPS FOR PROFESSIONALS

What better way to present writing tips than to demonstrate them!
Here are 20 tips from Barbara Priest.

Avoid clichés like the plague.
Comparisons are as bad as clichés.
Never generalize.
Proofread carefully and you won’t any words out.
Who needs rhetorical questions?
Avoid using awkward or affected alliteration.
No one should use a singular noun without using a singular noun in their writing.
No one-word sentences. Ever.
The passive voice is to be avoided.
If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
Be specific, more or less.
It is incumbent upon all professionals to avoid archaisms.
Never overuse exclamation marks!!!!!
Never, never ever use repetitive redundancies.
Avoid un-necessary hyphens.
Verbs has to agree with their subjects in number.
It is a mistake to ever split an infinitive.
Prepositions are not used to end a sentence with.
Avoid parenthetical remarks (no matter how relevant).
Edit and reread your writing, and you’ll find that on editing and rereading it, a great deal of repetition can be avoided by editing and rereading.