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“Deft, generous, wise and insightful, Roy Jacobsen’s experience-based blog is one of the best bangs for the click that any writer will find on the Internet.”—Arthur Plotnik“Writing – Clear and Simple proves that it doesn’t take a professional to write clearly and with impact.” —Top 100 Blogs to Improve Your Writing in 2010
One of “The Top 30 Blogs on Writing” according to the Delaware Employment Law Blog.
"Your website rocks!"—William Van Benschoten
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Category Archives: Style
“Be vewwy quiet! I’m hunting intensifiers!”
A modifier is a word or phrase that modifies another word or phrase by adding descriptive, limiting, or qualifying details. Adjectives modify nouns, and adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, and everything else. Intensifiers are a special class of modifier that work … Continue reading
Posted in Growing as a writer, Style, Uncategorized
Tagged adverbs, Arthur Plotnik, intensifiers, tired words
4 Comments
Simplify
Here’s an exercise you can try this week: Make everything you write as simple as possible. Think Shaker furniture. Don’t add words. Cut them. Pare your message to its core. Don’t use big words. Use the simplest words you can. … Continue reading
Are short sentences better than long sentences?
Writer Cynthia Robertson is railing against “The Cult of the Short Sentence.“ [Update 5:29 central time, 27 July 2011: I removed the Robertson quote at her request.] In my experience, long sentences frequently turn up when the writer doesn’t notice … Continue reading
Yahoo! It’s a Style Guide!
The Yahoo! Style Guide: Writing and Editing for the Web was published earlier this month. If you write for online publishing, it’s well worth a look. (The website, linked above, is also a good resource to bookmark.) What’s that? “What’s … Continue reading
Posted in Style, Style manual, Toolbox
Tagged APA, Associated Press, Chicago Manual of Style, MLA, The Economist, Turabian, Kate, Yahoo!
6 Comments
The Shape of Information
All of the written content we create must have some sort of structure. Whether it’s straightforward data like population or crop production statistics, or more semantically rich information such as a corporate handbook or a biography, selecting an appropriate framework … Continue reading
Posted in Articles, Information Architecture, Style
Tagged information architecture, Wurman, Richard Saul
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