You Are Using Too Many Adjectives (and Other Common Spelling Mistakes That Should Be Avoided)
Whether you write for life, functionally as part of your job, or as little humanly as possible, because thinking about English in high school still gives you cold sweats, we can all use periodic reminders of some cutting edge writing methods – and the most common mistakes to avoid.
Long views
According to one Microsoft study , a person’s attention span is eight seconds (less than a goldfish). This means that writers have very little time to grab the reader’s attention before they ditch the ship in search of more interesting content. Be it an email, presentation, article, or research paper, keep introductions short. After your first draft, go back and cut out the words (and sentences!) That take readers away from the point. Then do it again.
Too many adjectives
In a letter to one of his students, Mark Twain advised : “When you catch the adjective, kill it.” He explained that not all adjectives, but most of them should be deleted because “They get weaker when they are close to each other. They give strength when they are far from each other. ” Consider the following suggestions:
The young blonde danced excitedly, her curly pigtails fluttering in the cold wind.
The girl danced excitedly, her pigtails bouncing in the wind.
The first sentence is weighed down with unnecessary adjectives; the second is easier to read. Moral of the story? Choose adjectives carefully and use them sparingly. Avoid the most banal variety at all costs: happy, sad, good, bad, tall, wide, beautiful, bright, dark, old and basic colors . Choose more descriptive adjectives ( uncouth instead of rude ) or more illustrative noun ( clunker instead of old car ).
Excessive use of adverbs
As Stephen King wrote in his book On Writing: Memories of a Craft , “the road to hell is paved with adverbs.” It is tempting to use adverbs abundantly. We may think we are adding mood or flair, when in reality everything we add is unnecessary words (for example, really, very, in fact, quite, literally ). Take a look at the following examples:
She thought it was very rude. How could Mark be so angry?
She thought it was rude. How could Mark be so angry?
In the first example, there is extremely and incredibly little meaning beyond the superficial inflating of the adjectives they modify. We do not want to live in a world without adverbs, but replacing weak verb-adverb pairs with more descriptive, separate verbs will make your writing stronger. For instance:
Instead of: The door opened slowly, try The door creaked open .
And we love this tip: when editing your work, every time you see the word simple , if you don’t use it to mean honest , delete it.
Using a passive voice
Alice made the cake. Alice baked a cake . The first sentence is an example of a passive voice in which the subject (pie) is the recipient of the verb’s action (done). The second sentence uses an active voice in which the subject (Alice) acts on the verb (made). According to Grammarly, ” sentences in an active voice have a strong, direct and clear tone, ” while a passive voice is “thinner and weaker.” It may be tempting to use a passive voice to sound more graceful or literary. Resist if there is no other way to write a sentence.
In addition, the passive voice can sound evasive, like an evasion of responsibility. Consider the following example: A scheduling error has occurred and efforts have been made to correct it . (Okay, who made the mistake? Who is fixing it?) It would be clearer and more honest to say in an active voice: We made a mistake in the schedule and are doing everything possible to fix it .
Verbosity
In the same letter, Twain praised his student for his use of “simple, simple language, short words and short sentences” and encouraged him to stick to this way of writing without allowing “insight, flowers and verbosity.”
Verbosity can manifest itself in the form of an excessive number of prepositional phrases (words such as ” above”, “from”, “behind”, “inside” , ” behind” or ” after” indicate direction, location or time) and placeholder words, for example , ” Here , there , this and that . “ If possible, change prepositional phrases to words that are more informative. For example: Jesse climbed the mountain after Jake. Cut up and out to make the proposal stronger : Jesse climbed the mountain after Jake .
Likewise, when you see words here , there , this and that, ask yourself if you can cut them out without changing the meaning of the sentence. Example: Tony thinks the Red Sox will go to the World Series. Tony thinks the Red Sox will go to the World Series .
Comma connections
Entire books have been written about the correct use of commas , but here we focus on one common mistake: comma splicing. This error occurs when two independent sentences are joined with a comma, rather than a join or semicolon.
For example: Becky loves Coldplay, she went to their concert.
Both of the above sentences can exist on their own and must be linked by a union or semicolon. (Or through a period.)
Becky loves Coldplay, so she went to their concert.
Becky loves Coldplay. She went to their concert.
Becky loves Coldplay; she went to their concert.
Without a conclusion
Even if it’s just one sentence, invite readers to feel the end rather than abruptly stopping the topic. How strange would it be if this article ended with Becky’s drama Cold Game?