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Steps to Improve Your Writing

adamfaliq.wordpress.com

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Re: Steps to Improve Your Writing

#61

Post by Veen »

Hard_Space wrote: post #45
DrBazza wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The word count is interesting. Presumably that's to approximately fill a "page", and provide a "familiar feel" to all articles on a site written by different authors? That's a good link and states what I was trying to say: """Good content is easy to read Good online content is easy to read and understand. It uses: short sentences sub-headed sections simple vocabulary This helps people find what they need quickly and…

> Presumably that's to approximately fill a "page", and provide a "familiar feel" to all articles on a site written by different authors? No, a word count is dictated either by the fact that the article is intended for print as well as (or instead of) the web, or else the latest SEO voodoo rumor suggests that this month 2k word articles are doing better than 3k word articles.

I also write for a living. The maximum word count often has more to do with how much the client is willing to pay than space or SEO concerns.

Re: Steps to Improve Your Writing

#62

Post by randcraw »

> A story has two components – characters and actions.

Three components... the third is A POINT.

Unless the path of the story's narrative promises to lead somewhere, the reader loses interest and stops reading.

Re: Steps to Improve Your Writing

#63

Post by sokoloff »

watwut wrote: post #42
rimliu wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

English is my fourth language. I hate seeing advice like "use simple, reduced vocabulary". Dumbing everything down is not a way to go. Feynman said, that if you cannot explaind it to a child you do not understand it, not that you should communicate with everyone like they were kids.

Simple, reduced vocabulary is not dumbing things down. It is about using most common words available for the usage.

Exactly. The number of times I read "utilize" or "leverage" seemingly because the author doesn't want to say "use" is very high.

"leverage" in particular seems to get over-used, even in cases where there is nothing approaching actual leverage.

Make the reader think about your actual point; anytime you make them instead think about your word choice (in the form of "why did they use that word?!"), you're reducing the information transfer and effectiveness of your writing.

Re: Steps to Improve Your Writing

#64

Post by Veen »

jasode wrote: post #47
DrBazza wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does the word "drinks" also bother you? No, but if you went to a pub and had several 'drinkings', then yes. "Learnings" is incorrect. > Does a language get to change and evolve at all? Yes, and despite my dislike for "learnings" it looks like it is here to stay unfortunately. It's "business English", amplified by the internet. When I tell friends and family about "learnings" their response is, to put it mildly, "wh…

>"Learnings" is incorrect. Not arguing with you but genuinely asking a question because I'm an armchair linguist that wants to dissect what's truly bothering you... Why is "learnings" incorrect but most of these other words ending in "-ings" acceptable? : https://www.thefreedictionary.com/words-that-end-in-ings#w10 In other words, what's the invisible rule that makes words like "readings" for "reading"/"read", "greet…

When you write for a general educated audience, it's best to avoid words that will strike their ear as out-of-place, uneducated, or unexpected. You don't want readers to stumble over words or turns of phrase that sound ugly or unfamiliar to them. It distracts from the message.

From the perspective of descriptive linguistics, "learnings" may be acceptable, but descriptive linguistics isn't the only factor governing how writing is received. It should be avoided unless you're writing for an audience in which it's already in general use.

The issue isn't rules about forming nouns from present participles, but custom and usage in the general population and in that section of the population who read and write at an educated level. It's a matter of judgement and style. What is customary changes over time, but that doesn't mean it should be ignored.

As to your final point, many words were in use in 1483 (and 1943) that would be out of place today.

Re: Steps to Improve Your Writing

#65

Post by MrPowers »

adamfaliq wrote: post #19

Hi everyone, OP here. Writing has always been a struggle for me. I just started to post consistently on this blog two weeks ago. Didn't expect this to get to the front page of HN. I hope you guys find it helpful. I'd appreciate any feedback or comment on the post! P.S: Fixed all the grammatical errors in the post.

Thanks for making the post. Focusing on creating a clear thesis at the start of your blog will help your readers understand the purpose of your post.

The first paragraph communicates you've struggled with writing in the past, the second para says writing advice is often low quality, and the third paragraph explains the characteristics of good writing (hints at the thesis).

You could make a single thesis like this: "This post explains the characteristics of good writing and how I was able to improve my writing skills."

You could continue with "learning to write well was a great personal struggle, especially because writing training materials didn't help". That could also be considered a separate thesis for a different post.

Paragraphs like these can be made more concise:

> Most writers struggle to write well when the subjects use technical terms. Technical terms are confusing when they are not introduced properly. This technique is helpful when communicating complex information that requires technical terms. When you introduce complex information, design the sentence that it appears in, so that you can locate that term at the end.

Here's how you could reword it:

Technical writing is difficult, especially when the terminology is not properly introduced. It's best to introduce technical terms at the end of sentences.

Re: Steps to Improve Your Writing

#66

Post by tartoran »

martin-adams wrote: post #33
geocrasher wrote: post #29

I've been writing for several years, and the more I blog, write training materials, or just write to customers, three things keep helping me improve: 1) Less is more. A) Write all you like, and then cut out all the stuff that doesn't matter. Like the way you just said the same thing 3 times in a row. B) The less you say the less someone has to argue with. The opposite is also true C) Stick to main points and save gor…

I use the text to speech in my articles as a 'read it out loud' exercise.

I do too and it truly makes a difference. When I read something out loud im still biased as my own voice somehow matches with my internal voice I hear when I'm silent reading. When it's read out loud with a different voice it registers completely differently.

Re: Steps to Improve Your Writing

#67

Post by kej »

rhn_mk1 wrote: post #59
DrBazza wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This one seems to be 100% USA, and then spread over social media. The same as Valley-speak became really popular after Clueless came out in the 90s. I can't recall seeing 'welp' anywhere before 2017.

I just checked my chat history - I used it in 2013, and there's a huge flood of "welp" from my chat partner between 2015 and 2019. (In 2020, the ball is on my side of the court again, it seems. Welp.)

Idle curiosity: what system(s) are you using that you have chat history going back that far and can easily search it?

Re: Steps to Improve Your Writing

#68

Post by tartoran »

geocrasher wrote: post #29

I've been writing for several years, and the more I blog, write training materials, or just write to customers, three things keep helping me improve: 1) Less is more. A) Write all you like, and then cut out all the stuff that doesn't matter. Like the way you just said the same thing 3 times in a row. B) The less you say the less someone has to argue with. The opposite is also true C) Stick to main points and save gor…

Thanks for sharing these observations. Im not much of a writer but would love to improve on my writing skills. I personally have the most problem with 3 and the only way I could get more productive brain dumps is to record myself talking freely instead, then rewrite it. But this is a time consuming process and was wondering what kind of exercises/drills I could use to ease the brain dump constipation. To me there's something that blocks me when I attempt to write something down freely but I feel that that the right exercises would ease it. I feel like Im making a wrong step somewhere that makes me become self conscious at the wrong moment.

Re: Steps to Improve Your Writing

#69

Post by geocrasher »

tartoran wrote: post #68
geocrasher wrote: post #29

I've been writing for several years, and the more I blog, write training materials, or just write to customers, three things keep helping me improve: 1) Less is more. A) Write all you like, and then cut out all the stuff that doesn't matter. Like the way you just said the same thing 3 times in a row. B) The less you say the less someone has to argue with. The opposite is also true C) Stick to main points and save gor…

Thanks for sharing these observations. Im not much of a writer but would love to improve on my writing skills. I personally have the most problem with 3 and the only way I could get more productive brain dumps is to record myself talking freely instead, then rewrite it. But this is a time consuming process and was wondering what kind of exercises/drills I could use to ease the brain dump constipation. To me there's s…

For me, the following exercise solved this problem for the most part:

Close your eyes and start typing. Don't stop until you're done.

Then let the editing begin :)

Re: Steps to Improve Your Writing

#70

Post by Hard_Space »

Veen wrote: post #61
Hard_Space wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Presumably that's to approximately fill a "page", and provide a "familiar feel" to all articles on a site written by different authors? No, a word count is dictated either by the fact that the article is intended for print as well as (or instead of) the web, or else the latest SEO voodoo rumor suggests that this month 2k word articles are doing better than 3k word articles.

I also write for a living. The maximum word count often has more to do with how much the client is willing to pay than space or SEO concerns.

I think Stephen King was quoting someone else when he said "I wrote a novel because I didn't have time to write a short story".

In my experience, getting the same core information into a smaller word count is extra work, not less.

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