I came across an article from a publisher earlier today. It was primarily a critique of article writers who fail to follow the fundamentals of good writing. Below are some of the publisher’s criticisms.
· Article lacks an overall basic structure
· Article requires pace and rhythm.
· Article meanders and fails to get to the point
· Too much use of the one-sentence paragraph.
· Sentences are too long.
· Poor punctuation
· Bad spelling
I have to agree with the publisher. The Internet is awash with poorly written articles, which makes life difficult for webmasters who must sift through reams of dross to find quality content for their sites. But it doesn’t need to be like this. All the above errors can easily be remedied by the simple application of a ‘best practice’ approach to the art of writing.
As writers, we should ensure that the quality of our written material matches the expectations of our readership. This can be achieved by applying a few basic strategies to improve our writing skills.
Structure:
1. Write a thesis statement about the topic of your article. This will give your article direction.
2. Mindmap or brainstorm content for your article. Exclude anything that is not relevant to your thesis statement.
3. Write the article summary first. This will give your writing focus.
Rhythm and Pace:
1. Divide your article into an introduction, development and a summary.
2. The introduction, which should be no more than one paragraph, is where you tell your reader what the article is about.
3. The development is where you put across your ideas on the topic you are writing about. For written pieces of 500 words or less, use no more than four paragraphs.
4. Summary. The article summary should be no more than two paragraphs in length and included the salient points covered in the development section of your article.
5. Paragraphing – paragraphs should contain three to six sentences of varying length. Avoid over long sentences as they can confuse your readers.
Proofread/edit your article:
1. Proofread your article, checking for grammar, spelling, and typos
2. Edit your article – be ruthless. Remove anything that doesn’t work towards your thesis statement or article summary. This should prevent your material from going off point and leading your reader up to the garden path.
Grammar and Punctuation:
1. The English language contains only four types of sentences. They are The statement, exclamation, question and the directive. You should, therefore, punctuate accordingly. Capital letter at the beginning of the sentence, then a period (.) or exclamation (!) or a question mark (?) to complete the sentence.
2. There are only four sentence structures that you can use in the English language. They are: the ‘Core Sentence’, which contains a subject and a verb; the ‘Basic Sentence’, which contains a subject, a verb and an object; the ‘Compound Sentence’, which contains two ‘Basic Sentences’ of equal status joined together by ‘and’, ‘or’, or ‘but’; and finally there is the ‘Complex Sentence’, which is made up of dependent and non dependent clauses. Any other structure is not a sentence. It is a fragment. Avoid using fragmented structures where possible.
When it comes to writing, none of us is perfect, and we all make mistakes. However, by applying a few well thought out strategies to our writing process, such as those written above, we can reduce the number of errors we make and improve our overall writing skills.
For those of you looking to improve your punctuation skills, I can recommend: ‘The Penguin Guide to Punctuation’ by R.L. Trask. Larry Trask, who sadly passed away in 2004, was one of my former professors at the University of Sussex. He was a great teacher and role model for those of us who had the privilege and good fortune to study under his tutelage.
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