Do's and Don'ts of Writing

Do's and Don'ts of Writing

Don't

1) Write from you heart and not from your mind:: Writings from the heart have so much more meaning than those from the mind.

2) Take the time to read over what you have written:: By reading over what you have written you can get a better understanding of things you might want to change, take out or add in.

3) Step away from your paper or story occasionally and do something else:: When you stop for awhile and put your mind on something else, your brain gets a chance to refresh itself and when you go back to your paper or story, you are more likely to improve it or notice something that you didn't before.

4) Take the time to try and explain in a clear manner what you are saying:: Unless you are writting a lab report (yuck!) people want to know what you mean and what point you are trying to get across. When you explain what you wrote, people get a better understanding of it, and can more fully appreciate your hard work and dedication to the writing.

5) Do allow yourself to make mistakes:: Everyone makes mistakes in writing every now and again, and its understandable. How can a person become a better writer if they don't make and learn from their mistakes.

6) Do take criticism as a positive thing:: People have a tendency to criticize a lot and when they do, they don't realize the emotions and the hard work that you have put into your writing. Try to keep in mind that the criticism they give is really only suggestions on what you could do better next time.

7) Do allow your peers and other people to read your work whether finished or not:: By letting others read your work, they can catch mistakes that you might have missed. The more your work is proof read, the more solid sounding it will be when its all fixed up.

8) Do allow yourself to be wrong every now and again. Not everyone is perfect.

9) Do allow yourself to learn from every writing experiance you have. Regardless of whether or not you are writing fiction or fact, you should still learn at least one thing from your efforts.

10) Always believe in what you write and hold proud the fact that you have written a piece of quality work. Just because someone else doesn't like it, doesn't mean you didn't do a good job.

1) Don't procrastinate when it comes to writing a paper for a class:: No matter how good of a writer you are, a teacher can tell when you have typed up a paper only hours before class started. You may think they can't tell, but believe me, they can and they don't like it.

2) Don't always write what you know:: Writing what you know is redundant, and boring and you learn nothing from it. By writing about things you don't know, you can learn a great deal more and improve yourself and your writing just that much more as well.

3) Don't spend hour after hour staring at your paper when you don't know what to write:: If you don't know what to write then try some free writing or go do something else that will stimulate your mind. You never know, playing a video game just may make you think about something you want to write about.

4) Don't use slang, bad grammer, or the latest cool words to say:: Teachers and people that don't know you or live in your area, will not understand what you mean when you use unfamiliar terms. Not to mention slang and bad grammer lend an ugly look to the paper that reflects back onto the writer.

5) Don't use rhetorical questions or old/big words more than is absolutely necessary:: This is a lesson that I had to learn the hard way. In my Synthesis Essay which you can find on the factual and researched writings page, I used a lot of archaic language and rhetorical questions. I had to revise the entire paper because I couldn't get my point across with what was there. Needless to say teachers don't seem to like that kind of stuff.

6) Don't make your fonts and line spacings larger just to fill up the required space. A teacher will definately notice this and take it into account when assigning a grade.

7) Don't write about the same boring stuff that everyone writes about unless you have a new and interesting veiwpoint on the topic. For example, gun control and abortion. Hello?! Can you say bored city? No one wants to read about that because its way too overdone.

8) Don't write about the easy things that you already know something about. You won't learn much from it and you'll most likely just get bored with it anyway.

9) Its not recomended to start a sentence with the word 'and'. I'm not exactly sure why this is, but in my opinion it doesn't look very good in the paper.

10) Don't neglect your dictionary and thesaurus. They are actually a lot more useful than you might think.

Note to the Reader: These lists are only my personal advice to you on ways to help improve your writing. They are not to be taken as fact. They come from my own personal experiences.