Recommended
The
Deluxe Transitive Vampire: The Ultimate Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent,
the Eager and the Doomed
and
The
New Well-Tempered Sentence: A Punctuation Handbook for the Innocent, the Eager
and the Doomed
- Karen Elizabeth Gordon
Elements
of Style - Strunk and White
On
Writing, Editing, and Publishing - Jacques Barzun
On
Writing Well
- William Zinsser
Write
Tight: How to Keep Your Prose Sharp, Focused and Concise - William Brohaugh
Style
- Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace - Joseph M. Williams
How
to Read a Book
- Mortimer Adler
Twenty Rules
for Writers - Just for Fun
Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
And
don't start a sentence with a conjunction. (But this rule is often broken to
good effect.)
It is
wrong to ever split an infinitive.
Avoid cliches
like the plague. (They're old hat)
Also,
always avoid annoying alliteration.
Be more or less specific.
Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary.
Also
too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
No
sentence fragments.
Do not
be redundant; do not use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous and
you should write concisely instead.
One
should NEVER generalize.
The
passive voice is to be ignored.
Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary. Parenthetical words however
should be enclosed in commas.
Never
use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice.
If
you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times: Resist
hyperbole; not one writer in a million can use it correctly.
Even
IF a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
Who needs rhetorical questions?
Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
Proofread carefully to see if you left any words out of your
From: Catholic Writer's Association website: www.trincomm.org/cwa