Writing Tips

Professor Comerford's suggestions for overcoming difficult writing problems and developing into a better communicator:

1. Read a few columns about the basics of expressing yourself, for example "Write Powerfully," Arizona State's "Think Tank" sites, and "The Purdue Owl," which has many excellent columns on writing, and this piece on avoiding over-writing, or "purple prose." You will also learn a lot from Grammar Girl, and should familiarize yourself with the "Editing Checklist" she has. I recommend spending time with each of these, on common grammatical errors you need to stop making now: "Five Grammatical Errors that Make You Look Dumb" and "20 Most Common Errors".

You might even try a few of the quizzes on line, for example "Are You Grammatically Correct?" or the various tests at Dave's ESL Cafe. A very good site with many links and easy-to-understand explanations on a large variety of topics in American English usage is called "Common Errors in English" and is maintained by Paul Brians.

2. No college student should make mistakes on possessive pronouns vs. contractions, subject-verb agreement, sentence fragments or run-on sentences. Further information on these issues is found at the above links.

3. Learn the differences among the various types of writing, like essays, letters, articles, book reviews, etc. Try "Essay Builder", "A Sampler of Writing Assignment Types", "Four Types of Writing," etc.

4. Do not hand in a single page until you are absolutely certain what plagiarism is. See the University policy, in the Student Conduct Code, for further information. Never claim as your own original idea something which you read somewhere else.

5. Do not hand in a single word until you have carefully and fully proofread the paper. This does not mean relying on your spell-checker, which can still leave you with many mistakes. If you are not a good speller, you can find some helps at “How to Improve Your Spelling Skills."

6. Admit to yourself that the old adage is true: all good writing is re-writing. In some classes, I require submitted drafts, in which case I help you with re-writing (meaning that if you do not follow my suggestions, you will do poorly); in other classes, I do not require submitted drafts, but expect you to do your own re-writing. In any event, never hand in a paper for a grade which you are not certain is worthy of the time it takes to read it.

7. Proper citation form (even for internet sources--see this page specifically for history papers) and bibliography form are never options, but always necessities.

8. Substance is important and will be defined differently for each paper, so read directions!!! This is important for format too: you should never lose points because you ignored instructions.

9. Style is personal, but that does not mean it is completely at your whim. You must develop your style; read here and here for tips on writing clearly.

10. Avoid the obvious in your writing. That means, first of all, to cut the following phrases out of your repertory:

"I will demonstrate...."

"As everyone knows...."

"As I said earlier/above...."

In addition, you should be careful about use of "of course," "clearly," and other phrases which suggest that your point is evident to everyone. Finally, make certain that you do not use cliches, including statements like "If xxxxx had not happened, then history would have been different." Besides being obvious, this is simply bad writing.

Updated February 10, 2016