College-Level Writing Mistakes

This is part four of a five-part series on writing mistakes.
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There is a still more subtle collection of common writing errors that crop up whenever an author tries too hard to sound clever. Here are the key symptoms:

1) Flowery writing.
2) Pretentious vocabulary.
3) Unnecessarily complex sentence structure.
4) Reliance on jargon.

The result is pompous and informationally bankrupt writing, and most of us were deeply guilty of writing just like this back in our college days.

Here are a few tips to help strip away college-level writing errors:

1) Break up all complex sentences into simple sentences, and try to train yourself to compose your first draft text in simple sentences. It will help clarify your thinking.

2) Look over your word choices and strip out words that make you sound like you're trying too hard to impress the reader. Don't be a show-off. It betrays a lack of confidence.

3) If at all possible, avoid using jargon. But in instances where some jargon use is unavoidable, be sure to translate each example of jargon into clear and understandable language for your readers. Do this at least once for each term, and be sure to do it early on in your piece. And then explain to the reader that you will use the jargon term for the remainder of the article.

High School Writing Mistakes

This is part three of a five-part series on writing mistakes.
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Unlike obvious and elementary writing errors like misspellings and poor grammar, what I like to call high school writing mistakes tend to be more subtle.

1) Have you checked each and every one of your facts for accuracy?

2) Have you taken care to differentiate between fact and opinion in your writing?

3) Have you been assiduous about attributing quotes and ideas so as to avoid even the slightest appearance of plagiarism?

These are important questions that we should all ask ourselves about everything we write, no matter what our level of writing experience. Just take the issue of plagiarism as an example--even the innocent misplacing of a couple of quotation marks or the accidental omission of a source can be enough to seriously harm the reputation of even the most established writer.

Grade School Writing Mistakes

This is part two of a five-part series on writing mistakes.
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We've already talked about protecting your credibility by systematically eliminating baby mistakes from your writing. This post discusses what I like to call grade school errors, the types of errors that make your writing sound like a gradeschooler's.

1) Does your writing contain misspellings of words like you're/your, to/too/two or there/their/they're? Does it contain the painfully ungrammatical phrases should of, would of, or could of?

2) Do all your verbs match with all of your subjects?

3) Are your verb tenses consistent throughout your writing?

A single instance of one of these errors, even in the midst of an exceptional article, can seriously damage your credibility in the eyes of your readers. That's why it is critical to go over every sentence of your writing and carefully strip out all examples of grade school errors. These types of errors are far more serious than simple spelling errors (which merely indicate laziness), because they cause your readers to question your intelligence and your competence.

The final type of grade school writing error is the crime of self-absorption. As you edit your work, ask yourself these three questions and you'll alleviate this all-too-common writing error:

1) Is your writing inappropriately dominated by the words I and me?

2) Is your writing about your subject, or is it really about you in relation to your subject?

3) Finally, can you step back and judge, objectively, whether your audience will care about what you write?

Remember, your writing is for your audience, not just for you.

Baby Writing Mistakes

This is part one of a five-part series on writing mistakes.
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The best way to destroy your credibility and send your writing career to an early death is to make simple, entry-level mistakes in your work. Obvious spelling, capitalization and grammar errors are inexcusable, especially when spellcheckers and grammar checkers are now available with almost all word processing software programs.

There are many people, especially in the blogging world, who will disagree, arguing that you don't need to be so rigid in a world where immediacy, or the quality of your ideas, takes priority over things like how well you spell or whether you put periods on the end of your sentences.

Of course the quality of your ideas is important. And yes, the internet has helped create an environment where the speed and immediacy with which you deliver your thoughts is more important than ever before.

However, this misses the real point: every time you post an article on your blog, send a short story off to an online magazine, or even hit "send" on an email, your credibility is at stake. If you value your credibility and you want others to value it too, take an extra minute or two to remove glaring spelling, grammar and punctuation errors. Don't let baby writing mistakes make you look like less of a writer than you really are.

The thing is, everyone makes these errors. But successful writers strip out 99% of them before anyone sees their work.

If You're a Writer Without Goals, You're a Failed Writer...

....you just don't know it yet.

The best way to achieve success in any field, especially in writing, is to set specific and measurable goals.

The very act of sitting down and writing up a list of goals helps you clarify your ambitions and your plans. What do you want to accomplish as a writer? Do you want to write short stories? A novel? A blog? Poetry?

Okay, when? What is a realistic timeframe to accomplish the thing you want to achieve? Mark that date on the calendar. Then, figure out how will you get from where you are now to your goals.

There's no diplomatic way to say it: you are toast as a writer if you don't set goals--and then reach them.

What writing goals have you set for the coming year?