Renovating Your Writing: Shaping Ideas into Clear, Concise, and Compelling Messages

by Kallan; Richard

• ISBN13: 9780205254392
• ISBN10: 020525439X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-02-17
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Debuting in its first edition, Renovating Your Writingoutlines the principles of effective composition and then engages the reader with constant revision and editing practices to improve writing skills at school, work, and home. This enlightening brief text provides readers with unique strategies, tactics, and tips needed to improve their ability to critique and self-revise their work. Kallan introduces and emphasizes to readers the difference between the actof writing and the informed practiceof writing.

Table of Contents

Strategies, Tactics, and Tips	p. 1
Rethinking Your Thoughts About Writing	p. 3
The Writing Process: Separating Fact from Fiction	p. 4
Most People Think They Should Like Writing	p. 4
Most People Think They Can Improve Their Writing Skills by Simply Reading More and Writing More	p. 4
Most People Think Their Writing Will Be Read by an Ideal Audience	p. 5
Your Writing: Separating Fact from Fiction	p. 6
Most People Think They Write Better Than They Do	p. 6
Most People Think They Can Develop Strong Writing Skills with Less Effort and Time Than Necessary	p. 7
Streamlining Your Writing	p. 9
Adopt the Runt of the (Word) Litter	p. 9
Ration Long Sentences	p. 12
Write Very Tightly Without Verbosity	p. 17
Exercises	p. 25
Constructing Sentences	p. 27
Get to the Point, Today	p. 27
Start with Active Actors	p. 28
Avoid Verby Nouns	p. 32
Play Nice	p. 34
Qualify Sensibly	p. 34
Treat Others Fairly	p. 35
Recognize That Women Exist	p. 36
Exercises	p. 38
Constructing Paragraphs and Pages	p. 41
State Your Purpose Like You Mean	p. 41
Build Them (Paragraphs) Right and They (Readers) Will Come	p. 46
Bottomline Your Main Ideas or Main Arguments	p. 46
Organize Evidence into Piles and Subpiles	p. 49
Embrace Your Outline	p. 54
Drive Home Your Message: Format Your Document	p. 60
Rely on Headings and Subheadings	p. 61
Befriend Bullets and Numbers	p. 65
Choose a Typeface	p. 67
Exercises	p. 68
Fortifying Sentences, Paragraphs, and Pages	p. 71
Check Out Your Audience	p. 71
Shepherd Your Sentences	p. 74
Rally Around the Topic Sentence	p. 74
Worry Not About Length	p. 77
Smooth the Rough Edges	p. 78
Strategize Your Case	p. 83
Strategize Persuasive Messages	p. 83
Strategize Informative Messages	p. 88
Revise How You Revise: A Final Note	p. 93
Exercises	p. 95
Additional Tools	p. 97
Punctuation Unmasked	p. 99
Why, Is Punctuation; So/Important	p. 99
Periods, Question Marks, and Exclamation Points	p. 100
Periods	p. 100
Question Marks	p. 101
Exclamation Points	p. 101
Commas, Semicolons, and Colons	p. 102
Commas	p. 102
Semicolons	p. 107
Colons	p. 109
Apostrophes	p. 110
Double and Single Quotation Marks	p. 111
Ellipses and Slashes	p. 114
Ellipses	p. 114
Slashes	p. 117
Dashes, Parentheses, and Brackets	p. 117
Dashes	p. 117
Parentheses	p. 119
Brackets	p. 120
Writing Nonobnoxious Professional and Personal E-mails	p. 121
Why You Are Not Always Read: Rating Your Readability	p. 125
Finding Your Fog lndexsm Score	p. 125
Putting the Fog Indexsm Scale to Work	p. 126
Original Fog Indexsm Score: 22.3	p. 126
Revised Fog lndexsm Score: 8.1	p. 127
Original Fog lndexsm Score: 27.2	p. 127
Revised Fog Indexsm Score: 7	p. 127
Original Fog lndexsm Score: 17.2	p. 127
Revised Fog lndexsm Score: 8.7	p. 128
Learning to Write Cogently	p. 131
History and Structure of Short Fiction	p. 131
Stylistic Characteristics of Short Fiction	p. 133
A Short Conclusion About Short Fiction	p. 135
Exercise Answers	p. 137
About the Author	p. 143
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