But to be a great writer, you also need to learn when to break those rules. Remember, to be a good writer, you need to learn the rules of writing. Particularly when you’re writing online, short paragraphs of just one or two sentences are often the best way to help your reader absorb your point quickly. But as your writing skills grow, staying chained to this rule will limit your ability to write effectively. When you’re first learning to organize your thoughts on paper, this formal structure gives you a tried-and-true template to follow. In school, many of us learned that a paragraph requires a topic sentence, several supporting sentences, and a concluding sentence. There are a lot of variations of this “rule” floating around out there. A paragraph needs at least three sentences And of course, sentence fragments that show up in the wrong context-say, a term paper or a formal business document-can come across as sloppy or too informal. Too many fragments will make your writing choppy and confusing. There’s one in this very paragraph, in fact! They help lend a casual, friendly tone to a piece of writing. Not convinced? There are a few of them sprinkled throughout this article. But the truth is, sentence fragments are an important technique for creating voice and tone in your writing. If you were taught that a sentence fragment is a grammatical error, you’re not alone. If you want to risk sounding sarcastic, go ahead and write Congratulations on your new job. After all, when you need to make an important point in an essay or you’re trying to add excitement to your novel, you can’t just rely on punctuation marks.īut now that most of our remote communication takes the form of texts, emails, and instant messages, exclamation points have emerged as an important tool for conveying tone. Scott Fitzgerald said that using an exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke. Different, right? A blanket ban on adverbs removes an important tool from a writer’s toolkit. Now picture this one: I started to ask a question, but she frantically motioned for silence. Visualize this scene: I started to ask a question, but she motioned for silence. īut in some cases, a well-chosen adverb is the clearest, most concise way to add detail and dimension to a description. “Write sprinted instead.” It’s true that sprinted is more precise and interesting than ran quickly. “Don’t write ran quickly ,” goes the classic advice.
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Avoid adverbsĪdverbs get a bad rap because it’s so easy for writers to rely on them to pad out a sentence full of bland verbs. Does it really matter who built the house? Probably not, unless someone has specifically asked for that information.
A development company built this house in 1960. Rewriting the sentence in the active voice would not only require you to dig up information you may not have, it would also bog down the sentence with an unnecessary detail. Here’s an example where the passive voice is the better choice: This house was built in 1960. But there are some things that the passive voice can do better.įor example, sometimes it just isn’t important or helpful to specify who performed the action you’re talking about.
In general, the active voice is more direct and concise. It’s solid advice, if you treat it as a guideline.
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If you’ve done even a moment’s research on how to write well, you’ve learned that you should use the active voice instead of the passive voice.
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