While an editor can fix grammatical errors, he cannot fix poor writing without chopping it up and reworking it at great effort and intrusion. It is therefore best to know from the outset what good writing is. Good writing, aside from being grammatically correct, has style. The following tips can help any writer develop just that:
1. Write for your reader. Do not write for your ego. This means writing clearly and without pretence.
2. Use the active voice. It is clearer and more precise than the passive voice. For example, do not write They are loved but We love them.
3. Use the passive voice to emphasise the action rather than the subject. The boy was nearly killed emphases the action more than does They nearly killed the boy, which puts more emphasis on the subject. For the same reasons, in a piece about the influence of Shakespeare, it would be clumsy to write Today critics hold Shakespeare to be the best dramatist rather than Today Shakespeare is held in the highest esteem among critics. The former might do in a piece strictly about the history of literary criticism; but the latter is more fitting, because it emphasises Shakespeare and his being esteemed, rather than what the critics are doing.
4. Make definite assertions. Avoid tame, colourless, hesitating, non-committal language. For example, He thought the study of Latin useless beats He did not think that studying Latin was very useful. Sometimes a writer can be non-committal to create nonchalance or humour by absurdity, e.g., The torturing of Guantanamo prisoners with the theme music from “Barney the Clown” is a bit like hearing GCSE students read Shakespeare.
5. Omit needless words. Vigorous writing is concise. Many expressions in common use violate this principle: the question as to whether and whether or not are better as whether; she is a woman who or she is a person who is better as she. Especially the expression the fact that should be revised out of every sentence in which it occurs. Thus: owing to the fact that should be replaced by since or because; in spite of the fact that should be replaced by though or although. An instance of this phrase which seems irreplaceable can be replaced by a gerund or noun: The fact that he did that is better as His doing that; It is a sign of the fact that I promised him a drink is better as It is a sign of my promise to buy him a drink.
6. Avoid dying metaphors. Political writing especially is plagued with these and would be easier to read if its writers took the time to find originality. See Russian bear, iron curtain, high price, underdog, dark horse, sacrificial lamb, big stick diplomacy, the face of. A lively metaphor helps the reader understand the writer’s meaning by evoking a visual image.
7. Never use an expedient phrase where a simple verb can be used. “These save the trouble of picking out appropriate verbs and nouns, and at the same time pad each sentence with extra syllables which give it an appearance of symmetry,” says George Orwell. For examples, render inoperative, make contact with, give rise to, have the effect of, play a leading role in, exhibit a tendency to. Each of these can be replaced by a simple verb and noun. “A verb like break, stop, dovetail, create, &c., becomes a phrase made from a noun or adjective tacked on to some non-specific verb such as prove, serve, form, play, render.”
8. Do not use pretentious words. “Words like phenomenon, element, individual (as noun), objective, categorical, effective, virtual, basic, primary, promote, constitute, exhibit, exploit, utilize, eliminate, liquidate, are used to dress up simple statements and give an air of scientific impartiality to biased judgements. Adjectives like epic, historic, unforgettable, triumphant, age-old, inevitable, inexorable, veritable, are used to dignify the sordid process of international politics, while writing that aims at glorifying war usually takes on an archaic colour, its characteristic words being: realm, throne, chariot, mailed fist, trident, sword, shield, buckler.” The only foreign words acceptable to use are the abbreviations for exempli gratia and et cetera.
9. Where a writer has used many adjectives in succession, there he can improve by cutting the excess adjectives and, if appropriate, by replacing the remaining with a verb construct. For example, in an opinion piece about militant atheism, the sentence Dawkins is well known and obviously intelligent, but he is also a proud militant atheist is better as Although Dawkins is praised and intelligent, evolution has endowed him with arrogance, which helps him when assailing members of tribes other than the Tribe of Science. A writer should use this principle only when describing. It is unnecessary to turn every adjective into a form with a verb. In Terry Pratchet’s words: “Use adjectives as if they cost you a toenail. Be ruthless.”
10. Think. Also from Orwell: “As I have tried to show, modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug. The attraction of this way of writing is that it is easy. It is easier – even quicker, once you have the habit – to say In my opinion it is a not unjustifiable assumption that than to say I think. . . A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?”
The Sixth Form Journal 