Browsing all posts in Writing Tips
Choose your words wisely
Many people confuse the word ‘diction’ to mean pronunciation or enunciation. What it originally means is the use or choice of words. When one says, for example, “He has good diction”, it doesn’t mean the person referred to pronounces his words well, but that he makes use of the right vocabulary in the proper context. [...]
Write, edit, rewrite!
When I was in high school, I attended a writing seminar for budding journalists (I thought I was going to become a newspaper reporter, as a fallback career). One lesson from that session that still rings clear in my head is this: Write, Edit, Rewrite. Actually, that’s still followed by more editing before the final [...]
Basics of writing critiques
This isn’t new — in fact, I’ve known about this since high school when I attended a journalism workshop. I’m talking about the fundamental guidelines on writing critiques or reviews: “K-K-K”. Or, kick-kiss-kick kiss-kick-kiss. In other words, something positive, then negative, then positive again. Let’s suppose you’re blogging about another blog. Start off with what [...]
Google dictionary
My co-conspirator in The Usual Suspects, Andrew, blogged about Google’s mathematical and financial problem-solving functionalities awhile back. The Google search bar doesn’t only return results of keyword queries, it also spits out sums, quotients, differences, even forex conversions. My own preferred use of Google’s extended facility is as a look-up tool for vocabulary. That’s right, [...]
Do the dots
This is about the proper use of punctuation marks in good writing.
Watch your language!
Good writing style and the proper use of language are necessary not only in traditional writing, but in blogging as well.
Alphabet soup
One of my readers recently asked me about my inclination to use accented vowels in my posts. Stuff like ‘vis-à-vis’, ‘über’, ‘résumé’. It’s not really necessary, but to me it looks pretty. So there. She did ask me to teach her how to get these accented vowels (and consonants) to display on web pages. I [...]
