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World CARP News

Volume 2, Issue 3

Page 11

A Beautiful Mind

Good Writing Techniques

Some advice from the Editor for all new contributors to the World CARP News.

1. Avoid alliteration. Always.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. Avoid clichés like the plague--they're old hat.
4. Employ the vernacular.
5. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
6. Parentheses (however relevant) are unnecessary.
7. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
8. Contractions aren't necessary.
9. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
10. One should never generalize.
11. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, 'I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.'
12. Comparisons are as bad as clichés.
13. Profanity sucks.
14. Don't be redundant; and don't use more words than necessary. It's highly superfluous.
15. Be more or less specific.

  1. Understatement always is best.
17. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than
understatement.
18. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
  1. The passive voice is to be avoided.
  1. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid
    colloquialisms.
22. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be
derailed.
  1. Who needs rhetorical questions?
  2. Plagiarism is theft. And I didn't write this.