WRITING GUIDE & STYLE SHEET

Formal Style

• Don’t announce your essay: “My composition is about…”  or “I am going to write about….”

• Avoid referring to yourself (unless it is a first-person narrative) and the reader: “I believe…,”  “In my opinion…”  or “You must …” or “I think you will agree….”

• Avoid unnecessary and/or obvious digressions. Don’t pad sentences.

• Don’t be redundant.

• Avoid sentence fragments. (Be careful when using adverb clauses: “Since they don’t live here anymore” is a clause, not a sentence.)

• Avoid run-on sentences.

• Use a variety of sentence types and lengths.

• Don’t show indecision. You are the expert! Sound confident.

• Avoid overused, informal, slang, or vague expressions: very, so, kid, gross, like

• Use specific modifiers. Avoid general adjectives such as nice, good, or bad.

 

Tricky Words

• Accept means to receive, except to omit.

• Affect can be only a verb, meaning to influence; effect may be a verb, meaning to bring about, or a noun, meaning the result of a cause.

• All ready refers to a state of readiness; already means prior to some specified time.

• All right is always written as two words.

• A lot is a portion of land or a specified variable quantity, not a substitute for many or much. It is always written as two words.

• Amount, much and less apply to quantities that are measured; number, more  and few apply to quantities that are counted.

• Between refers to two; among to more than two.

• Can implies ability to do; may implies permission.

• To feel good means to feel happy; to feel well means to be in good health.

• Bad may mean sick or unhappy (“I feel bad.”); badly is an adverb and should not be used as an adjective.

 

Do’s and Don’ts

• I is used as a subject; me is used as an object; myself is used only reflexively to refer to the subject I. (Subject: Joe and I read the book; Object: My teacher read it to Joe and me. Reflexive: I read it to myself) Never use myself as the object with any subject other than I. (Wrong: If you have any questions, see Joe or myself. Correct: If you have any questions, see Joe or me. )

• Don’t abbreviate or use Instant Message words in your writing.

• Capitalize the pronoun “I.”

• The following are not proper words; do not use them.

ourself             hisself              theirselves        themself           ain’t

• Write out numbers less than three words (if numbers are infrequently used).

e.g. “five” not “5”

• You refers to your reader. Avoid using you to refer to people in your essay.

 

Spelling

Learn to spell and use the following words correctly:

 

• to, too, two

• which, witch

• where, wear, were

• your, you’re

• whose, who’s

• their, there, they’re

• its, it’s

• because (not cause, or cuz)

• lie, lay, have lain (“to rest or relax”)

• lay, laid, have laid (“to put or place something”;  must have a direct object)

• have, of (“I should have known,” not “I should of known”)

• a lot (not alot) (Better yet, use “many,” “much,” “a great deal of,” etc.)

• no one (not noone)

• everybody (not every body)

• nowhere (not no where)

 

Punctuation

Learn the following fundamentals of punctuation:

 

• Every sentence must begin with a capital letter.

• Every sentence must end with a punctuation mark: period (.), question mark (?), or exclamation point (!).

• Include apostrophes when using contractions. (we’re, don’t, I’ll)

• Use apostrophes to form the possessive case of nouns and indefinite pronouns (John’s or everyone’s). Do not use an apostrophe to form the possessive case of a personal pronoun (her or its).

• Indent the first sentence of each paragraph.

• Use commas after items in a series. (“We bought apples, peaches, pears and oranges.”)

• Use commas before and, but, or, nor, yet, for when they join independent clauses unless the clauses are very short.

• Use commas to set off expressions that interrupt the sentence. (however, also, such as)

• Use commas after introductory adverb clauses. (“When the rain stopped, we went home.”).

• Use a semi-colon to join two independent clauses without a coordinating conjunction (e.g. “The teacher taught; the students learned.”).

• Use a semi-colon between items in a series if the items contain commas. (“Those attending the convention came from Detroit, Michigan; El Paso, Texas; and Bangor, Maine.”).

• Use a semi-colon before a conjunctive adverb that joins two clauses. (however, nevertheless, moreover, consequently, furthermore, therefore, besides, so, thus, etc.)

• Use a colon (1) to show something is to follow, (2) when writing the salutation of a business letter, (3) when using numerals to indicate time, volume, page, etc.  (“3:30 p.m.,” “8:81”)

• Use a dash to indicate an important break in thought. (“I always wanted to — but it’s too late now.”)

• Use a hyphen to join words or to indicate a line break.

• Underline/italicize works of art, ships, trains, planes, and titles of books, newspapers magazines, plays, movies and television series.

• Use quotation marks to enclose a direct quotation, and titles of chapters, articles and short poems.

• Use brackets to enclose editorial comments inserted within quoted material.

• Use parentheses to enclose supplemental information that is not necessary to the meaning of the sentence.

• Slashes indicate options (and/or) and unindented lines of poetry.

• Ellipsis (. . . ) indicates an omission from a direct quotation. Three spaced periods form an ellipsis. At the end of a sentence, a fourth spaced period is required.

 

Grammar

Avoid these common grammatical errors.

 

• Don’t split infinitives (e.g. “to write,” not “to always write”).

• Be sure pronouns agree in number, gender and case.

• Tom has a dog. He took it to the vet.

• Sue went shopping. She bought herself a scarf.

• Tom and I went to town. There we saw a fire.

• Don’t switch verb tense.

• It was Tuesday, and we were sitting in class.

• Be sure subject and verb agree in number.

• One of the boys was late.

• Avoid using “that” and “which” when referring to a person.

 

For Fun:

Writing Checklist

 

• Don't use no double negatives.

• About them sentence fragments.

• Don’t write run-on sentences you have to use punctuation.

• Try not to ever split infinitives.

• Verbs has to agree with their subjects.

• A pronoun must agree with their antecedents.

• Between you and I, case is important.

• Correct spelling is esential.

• When dangling, watch your participles.

• Use your apostrophe's carefully.

• Avoid clichés like the plague.

• Don't use, unnecessary commas.

• Contractions aren't always necessary and shouldn't be used to excess, so don't.

• Foreign words and phrases are not always apropos.

• Don’t repeat; don’t be redundant. Don’t say the same thing twice; say something only once. In other words, don’t be repetitious. Repeating is something you shouldn’t do. It is superfluous.

• A write mustn’t shift your point of view.

• Keep your tense consistent. You didn’t want to shift from present to past tense.

• Don’t abbrev.

• Writing dangling modifiers, the reader will be confused.

• Proofread you writing!

 

Owed Two the Spell Checker

 

Eye halve a spelling checker

It came with my pea sea

It plainly marcs 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 to long

And eye can put the error rite

Its rare lea ever wrong.

 

Eye have run this poem threw it

Eye am shore your pleased two no

Its letter perfect awl the weigh

My checker tolled me sew.