How to Not Write Bad: The Most Common Writing Problems and the Best Ways to Avoidthem

by Ben Yagoda

  [The criteria that made this site able to be nominated are because of the uniqueness of the content it possesses.]

  Again, one looks on a veritable cavalcade of infelicities, leading off with bad parallelism, infelicitous use of the passive, and wordiness. What’s being said, I think, is:

  The site has excellent content.

  Then there’s this:

  [Iron Hill is a unique restaurant that’s a favorite for Homecoming and Graduation.]

  Not only is that advertising-speak, but it’s bad advertising-speak. If you take the effort to find out or figure out something real (the opposite of advertising-speak), you will produce a stronger sentence.

  Iron Hill is already fully booked for Homecoming and Graduation.

  I’ll pause here because the above example illustrated a point that’s going to come up again and again in this section. Being unique-less isn’t the only reason why the second version is better. It also has a piece of relevant and specific information: the fact that the restaurant is sold out. The writer of the first sentence doesn’t know much about Iron Hill—other than a vague sense that it’s popular—and has produced weak writing. The writer of the second sentence has taken the trouble to find out an important fact and has used it to produce strong writing.

  This is no coincidence. If you are un- or underinformed about your subject, you will hem and haw, engage in the passive voice and qualifiers, and overgeneralize. If you take the trouble to fully research it—and, equally important, think hard and rigorously about it—you’ll be specific, precise, and authoritative. In other words, knowledge leads to good writing. That is simply a corollary of perhaps the most important of all writing mantras: show, don’t tell.

  This issue never, ever goes away, because telling is much easier than showing. You can sit back in your easy chair, pluck a few adjectives out of the thesaurus, and you’re off to the races. To show, you have to get up off your butt: literally, by doing some research and reporting, or figuratively, by going beyond your initial top-of-the-head thought and lifting and arranging some nouns and verbs.

  (I hereby give you permission to use unique if you really and truly mean that the thing being described is one of a kind, cross your heart.)

  b. Literally

  In conversation, it’s no big deal to use literally when you mean figuratively. If you said, for example, “I literally turned the house upside down looking for that checkbook,” your listeners would understand that your house is still on its foundation. However, this literally literally makes for bad habits and therefore bad writing. No one will misunderstand you, but your readers will raise a collective eyebrow. You might be tempted to use the word when it’s technically correct—for example, writing I was literally up all night in reference to a night in which you did not sleep. Resist the temptation and stay away from literally. It’s stronger and cleaner to serve the facts straight up: I was up all night.

  c. Myself

  The English language is being inundated with myselfs, the result, I think, of creeping wordiness and uncertainty in many cases over whether I or me is correct. So we get a lot of:

  [The people signing the document were George Parkinson, Leila Fischer, and myself.]

  [The other players and myself left the field soon afterward.]

  In the second example, myself should be replaced with I. That’s true in the first example as well, but it’s not as obvious. You can avoid the uncertainty—and improve the sentence—by recasting it:

  George Parkinson, Leila Fischer, and I signed the document.

  The bottom line is to use myself only when you (the speaker or writer) are the object of the verb (I looked at myself in the mirror and have to admit I was smokin’) or as a way to emphasize that you were the sole actor (I put up the bookcases myself). Otherwise, dispense with it.

  d. Share

  Share is fine to signify “generously distribute,” as in He shared his cookies with the other students. But it is not fine as a psychobabbly replacement for say or discuss, as in He shared that he plans to retire next year or He shared some experiences from his tour of duty in Iraq. What to replace it with? Well, um, said and talked about.

  e. Qualifiers and Intensifiers

  I’d estimate that three-quarters of the time, you can improve a sentence by striking out the qualifiers (pretty, somewhat, a little, kind of, and the currently popular kinda, sort of, rather, arguably, slightly) and intensifiers (very, extremely, really, completely, totally, absolutely, unbelievably, remarkably, and, of course, literally).

  Qualifiers make you come off as mealymouthed.

  [Roy Halladay is arguably the best pitcher in the National League.]

  What a weak statement! It’s tantamount to saying, “I can’t really back this up, but it’s possible that Roy Halladay is the best pitcher in the league, maybe.” Instead, pick a strong limb and take a stroll out on it:

  Roy Halladay has the most wins, the most strikeouts, and the lowest ERA in the National League.

  Roy Halladay was National League managers’ unanimous selection as pitcher of the year.

  Or strongest of all:

  Roy Halladay is the best pitcher in the National League.

  Intensifiers, meanwhile, make you seem like the Boy Who Cried Wolf: This time they’re really, really coming. I mean it! Really! More often than not, a naked statement is stronger than one pumped up with intensifying steroids.

  Transformers V is a very incredibly extremely unbelievably truly bad movie.

  I don’t mean to suggest that adverbs—of which qualifiers and intensifiers are examples—can’t be used effectively and strategically. I just did so. The key is that effectively and strategically, in this context, are specific and precise, as opposed to adverbs meant to vaguely stoke the fire of your argument or cover your posterior.

  f. Others to Avoid

  Particular is a currently popular four-syllable word that usually adds nothing to a thought except four syllables.

  That particular film is the most exciting science-fiction epic of the summer.

  Personally rarely if ever contributes anything of value, either.

  Personally, I believe U.S. tax policy is a disaster.

  (I believe goes as well: you wrote it, so of course you believe it.)

  Personal tends to be redundant, most notoriously in the expression personal friend (what other kinds of friends are there?), but also in:

  She led me to her personal office, which overlooks the museum’s gardens.

  Prefacing a statement with frankly, to tell the truth, I’m not going to lie, or some other such pledge of verity has the effect of making you seem like you’re not 100 percent sincere. So avoid them.

  Actually, a hugely popular word at the moment, is actually usually just filler.

  We actually met in summer camp.

  Aforementioned is an oddly legalistic word that has cropped up in some of my students’ writing over the last few years. Why, I don’t know, but I do know that it should go.

  With the publication of his aforementioned novel, The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen gained a great deal of notoriety.

  Even in quoted dialogue, stay away from dialect, or, in general, words that are spelled to indicate someone’s accent or pronunciation: kinda, gonna, the Southerner who laaahks something, the New Yawker who tawks like dis. A very little of this goes a very long way. Plus, sometimes it just doesn’t make sense. Sometimes a person will be described as saying, “I wazzunt there,” making me wonder, What, exactly, is the difference in pronunciation between wazzunt and wasn’t?

  2. LENGTHY IS DESIRABLE SHORT IS GOOD (I)

  The English language is unusual and I believe unique in having thousands of pairs of synonyms in which one of the words is plain and the other fancy. Usually, the longer word is Latinate in origin and the shorter one Anglo-Saxon. No matter what kind of writing you’re doing, it’s usually the case that the simpler word is better. The chart below lists some common pairs.

  You get the idea,
right? Now, sometimes you will want the fancy word, for variety, ironic effect, sound, or some other reason. And hundreds and hundreds of splendid multisyllabic and/or fancy words, especially the much-maligned adjective, have no simple equivalent. What better way to describe an out-of-the-way word than arcane, a bitter person than dyspeptic, or the act of deliberately giving up something as eschewing? If you “own” such a word, in the sense of being confident of its meaning and nuance, go for it! (Needless to say, the best way to gain ownership of a lot of great words is to read a lot.) Otherwise, nine times out of ten, simpler is better.

  E. B. White has a wonderful paragraph about his former Cornell teacher William Strunk, author of the original Elements of Style, which White edited and updated in the 1950s and which has been in print ever since. The subject is concise sentences (addressed in III.C.4.), rather than short words, but it is worth a listen no matter what:

  “Omit needless words!” cries the author on page 39, and into that imperative Will Strunk really put his heart and soul. In the days when I was sitting in his class, he omitted so many needless words, and omitted them so forcibly and with so much eagerness and obvious relish, that he often seemed in the position of having shortchanged himself—a man left with nothing more to say yet with time to fill, a radio prophet who had outdistanced the clock. Will Strunk got out of this predicament by a simple trick: he uttered every sentence three times. When he delivered his oration on brevity to the class, he leaned forward over his desk, grasped his coat lapels in his hands and, in a husky, conspiratorial voice, said “Rule Seventeen. Omit needless words! Omit needless words! Omit needless words!”

  As I say, the passage is about short sentences, but it uses short words. To be specific, here’s the percentage of time White (generally considered to be one of the finest American stylists of the twentieth century) uses words of various lengths:

  One-syllable: 67 percent

  Two-syllable: 21 percent

  Three-syllable: 10 percent

  Four-syllable: 2 percent

  Five-syllable: 0

  Six-syllable: 1 percent

  Seven-syllable or above: 0

  And here, for the fun of it, is a pie chart showing the proportion of words, by length, in the passage:

  White’s proportions seem about right as a model for us all, with the understanding that there will be a little give and take in view of your own personal style and the kind of writing you’re doing. Note, by the way, the three long words he used in this 128-word passage: imperative, predicament, and conspiratorial. They are eminently fine words, not replaceable by anything shorter, and a model for when it’s okay to go long.

  3. PRECISION: WORDS THAT ARE A BIT OFF

  The online thesaurus is a great tool. The online thesaurus is a menace.

  Let me expand on that thought. Three sentences ago, I used the word tool. If I for some reason weren’t happy with it and consulted the thesaurus provided by Microsoft Word, I would be offered the following alternatives: instrument, apparatus, implement, device, means, utensil, contrivance, and gizmo. I submit that none of these would be an acceptable substitute for tool in that sentence, with the possible exceptions of device (barely) and gizmo (not bad). However, if I were someone who hadn’t read a lot, and especially if I were someone who thought that longer is better, I might be tempted by instrument, apparatus, utensil, and maybe even some others. If I gave in to temptation, I would wreck the sentence.

  The thesaurus is helpful and cool if you have a strong sense of the meaning and nuance of words, and/or if you are willing and able to use the dictionary as well: that is, if you can handle the goal of writing well. If your object is not writing badly, it tends to get you in trouble. You will often find you don’t have the word you want at your disposal. When that happens, break down your meaning into simple, short sentences of whose meaning you are completely confident. If they sound like See Dick run, that’s okay: you can start building them back up again.

  If you go through this process and find you’re still really stuck for a word, fine, use the thesaurus. But when you have a likely candidate, take care to look it up in the dictionary. Study the definition (especially the used-in-a-sentence examples) and don’t go ahead and use it until you really own the word.

  Below are some examples of student sentences with off words. They have a number of other problems as well. Let’s take them one by one.

  1. [It was these waves which took control of the stomachs of sixteen of the seventeen passengers on our boat, myself being the exception.]

  It (see III.C.6), myself (see III.B.1.c.), and no fewer than four prepositions (see III.C.7.) immediately jump out as trouble spots here. The main problem in wording is took control, which doesn’t quite work as a description of what the waves did to the stomachs. That looks ahead to the second rule in the next section: try to come up with strong subjects for sentences and clauses. Waves paints you into a corner when it comes to verbs.

  Breaking the sentence down to its elements, you can some up with something like:

  The waves rocked the boat, and within minutes sixteen of the seventeen passengers were seasick. I was the exception.

  If you want to keep the waves-stomach combination, I think the only way to go is to be a little fanciful or facetious:

  The waves had their way with sixteen of the seventeen passengers’ stomachs. I was the exception.

  2. [Foreign, sour odors assaulted my nostrils, and already my stomach lurched half an inch. Giggling nervously, I tentatively pierced a large portion of kimchi with my fork, and making sure I had plenty of eerie red sauce, bit into it.]

  This is pretty good writing—specific, vivid, and active—with the exception of the two off words. Replacing already with immediately solves the first one. Eerie sounds like a word the thesaurus proposed to replace strange or weird. The student was right that strange and weird weren’t quite right, but neither is eerie. What she needs is a succinct description of the sauce. I haven’t tasted it, so I can’t help with this one.

  3. [Walking in the front door of the café, the vestiges of domesticity are everywhere regardless of a recent remodeling.]

  Three problems: a dangling modifier (the vestiges didn’t walk in the front door), the off words vestiges and regardless, and a seriously weak ending. The solution is shuffling, specificity, and trading in vestiges for a simpler model:

  The café was remodeled last year, but when you walk in, you still see signs of domesticity everywhere.

  4. [He says the most applicable thing he learned at the university was taken from social aspect which the university provided him with.]

  Leaping out from the verbiage is the word applicable. One understands what’s meant—that he felt he could apply this stuff in his later life—but that’s not the way the word is properly used.

  He says the most useful aspect of his time at the university was meeting and learning to live with new people.

  5. [The university’s theater program has already proven to attract national media attention, not to mention it has established a curriculum that makes it a staple of graduate theater in the country.]

  Number 5 is an example of typing, not writing. That is, the writer had a vague notion of what she wanted to say, put it down in a nonmindful way, and did not read it aloud with an eye to revision. I bet she had some music on and was checking her text messages. Anyway, there the sentence sits, imprecise, poorly worded, riddled with clichés and catchphrases. It actually starts out fine: the first six words are a strong subject and the beginning of a strong verb. But already proven to has problems in meaning and syntax; not to mention introduces a comma splice; staple is the wrong word (probably taken from the thesaurus); there’s a word missing after theater (the writer probably deleted program to avoid word repetition); and in the country is a weak, trail-off ending.

  So let’s just break it down to its elements.

  The university’s theater program has attracted national media attention and established a curriculum tha
t’s the envy of the country’s other theater programs.

  Better but not great. The biggest remaining problem is the repetition of program. One solution is to deploy a fancy word, counterparts—and remember, when a fancy word is the right word, it doesn’t present a problem.

  The university’s theater program has attracted national media attention and has a curriculum that’s envied by its counterparts throughout the country.

  4. AVOID CLICHÉS LIKE THE PLAGUE

  The cliché is the poster child of bad writing.

  And that, my friends, is a cliché. Clichés are bad because they’re tired, overdone, unoriginal, dull, and mindless. They make you seem like everybody else, not like an individual with an interesting perspective and a voice that deserves to be listened to. But they’re hard to avoid because they express a concept in a vivid and effective way (otherwise they wouldn’t have become so popular), and one that the reader is sure to understand. The combination of aptness and familiarity means that clichés are constantly occurring to a writer. Some of them get excised (or exorcised) by one’s internal editor, but quite a few make it to the computer screen or legal pad, where they need to be vigilantly smoked out.

  Until Microsoft Word comes up with cliché-check to go along with spell-check, you’ll never be able to get rid of every single one. The best you can hope for is to manage them.

  To that end, it’s useful to take a look at the life cycle of clichés. They are born as fresh, vivid figures of speech: often metaphors, on other occasions words or phrases used in an unexpected context. That means someone invented them. That is, a particular individual once thought to note of a not-especially-difficult enterprise, “It’s not brain surgery.” That was clever! The inventor deserved garlands and hosannas. Inevitably, other people started saying it as well. Over time, George Orwell observed in his classic essay “Politics and the English Language,” such formulations lose “all evocative power and are merely used because they save people the trouble of inventing phrases for themselves.” He dubbed them “dying metaphors,” another way of saying clichés.