General Editing Tips

[Ferossa]

This list was originally compiled by George L. Trigg et. al. The Writing Center got this copy from ILS 3, who took it from Optics News Vol. 8: No. 1, which had reprinted it from Phys. Rev. Lett. 42:748 (1979). I find it useful for general editing and style, and whenever I read it, it makes me laugh.

1. Make sure each pronoun agrees with their antecedent.
2. Just between you and I, the case of pronouns is important.
3. Watch out for irregular verbs which have crope into English.
4. Verbs has to agree in number with their subjects.
5. Don't use no double negatives.
6. Being bad grammar, a writer should not use dangling modifiers.
7. Join clauses good like a conjunction should.
8. A writer must not shift your point of view.
9. About sentence fragments.
10. Don't use run-on sentences you got to punctuate them.
11. In letters essays and reports use commas to separate items in a series.
12. Don't use commas, that are not necessary.
13. Parenthetical words however should be enclosed in commas.
14. Its important to use apostrophes right in everybodys writing.
15. Don't abbrev.
16. Check to see if you any words out.
17. In the case of a report, check to see that jargonwise, it's A-OK.
18. As far as incomplete constructions, they are wrong.
19. About repetition, the repetition of a word might be real effective repetition—take, for instance the repetition of Abraham Lincoln.
20. In my opinion, I think that an author when he is writing should definitely not get into the habit of making use of too many unnecessary words that he does not really need in order to put his message across.
21. Use parallel construction not only to be concise but also clarify.
22. It behooves us all to avoid archaic expressions.
23. Mixed metaphors are a pain in the neck and ought to be weeded out.
24. Consult the dictionery to avoid mispelings.
25. To ignorantly split an infinitive is a practice to religiously avoid.
26. Remember to hyphenate two or more word modifiers that precede the words they modify.
27. Last but not least, lay off cliches.

And one more favorite of mine that Trigg left off his list:

28. Eschew obfuscation!!

[edonil]

You know you read too much when #28 is confusing as to why it's a joke, not what it means, lol. Thanks for this, it was an excellent read!