Week 3: The 11th Secret to Writing Well

Week 3: The 11^th Secret to Writing Well

I recognize that this is last weeks post, but I figured better late than never! For me, the 11th secret to writing well is "sitting in silence." It is the quiet moments when we allow ourselves to think and reflect that we find our voice. Many times, when I do not know what to write, I put away the pen and paper to find a reflective silence. This gives me the opportunity to figure out what I want to say, the best way to say it and focus on where certain words, phrases or ideas may take my writing. Being able to fully develop ideas in a quiet space sets us up for success in our writing, making it the 11^th secret to writing well.

The first mistake I found was from E! New on Facebook. On the first line, the word “the” is repeated twice. It was a hard mistake to spot because “the” is easily skimmed over. However, as editors we need to diligently ready every word—and sometimes every letter—to make sure that small mistakes like this stay out of our clients’ writing as well as our own.

The second mistake I found was also from E! News. In an article about the new “Dancing with the Stars” contestants, the journalist wrote “Her and Taylor Swift” when it should be “Taylor Swift and she” or “She and Taylor Swift.” The best trick I have learned when deciding on correct pronouns in situations like this is to cover the other person or noun and read the sentence with only the pronoun. (Obviously, you would need to make exceptions for verbs as in one case it would be singular and in another plural.) In this example, “She has a handful of interactions” is grammatically correct while “Her has more handfuls” is not grammatically correct.

The third and final mistake I found was from the Standard-Examiner in the article “Fallout from Utah nurse arrest: Policy changes, apologies.” I underlined the varying verb tenses throughout the first paragraph, and I circled the passive voice in the next paragraph. The verbs “telling” and “screams” are present tense while “pulled” is past tense. Also, the passive voice needs to identify who is praising Wubbels. My trick for identifying passive voice is by adding “by zombies” to the end of a phrase. If zombies can perform the action, then the phrase is passive. In this case, “Wubbels is being praised by zombies” is passive.