1. Tips for Tightening Your Writing

2.  Sentences with needless words are like out of shape athletes: they’ll do the job, but they are bulkier, slower, clumsier, and less exciting.  Tightening up your sentences makes them more direct, forceful, and interesting. It also gives you room in your essay to communicate more complex and detailed ideas.  Good rule of thumb write it “again, half as long.”

3. PASSIVE  The ball was hit by him.  The building was being blown up.  The paper written by me received an “A,” making me feel happy. ACTIVE  He hit the ball.  The building exploded.  I was happy my paper earned an “A.”

4.  He was sure that he was lost.  The fact was that she forgot that the party was at 9:00, not 10:00.  He knew he was lost.  She forgot the party was at 9:00, not 10:00. The word “that” is often unnecessary and can be omitted Use “that” to single out a specific person, object, idea, etc. I want that car. That is a good idea. That man stole my English textbook. I’m okay with that.

5.  The paper of Bob.  The claim of the book is that an asteroid caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.  Bob’s paper.  The book’s claim is an asteroid caused the dinosaurs’ extinction. Or better still: The book claims an asteroid caused the dinosaurs’ extinction. Here we have changed a noun made from a verb back into a verb.

6.  He was not on time.  She didn’t remember.  He was not a safe driver.  She was not correct.  He was late.  She forgot.  He was a reckless driver.  She was incorrect. She was wrong. Avoid using “not” + a noun or adjective to express a negative concept.

7.  Try only to use “not” when you are actually denying something or making a direct contrast, i.e. “not this but that.”  I did not do that.  It’s this way, not that way.  Cut the green wire, not the red one! (BOOM!)

8. The following is a very impressive sounding (and almost impossible rewriting of a Bible verse. See if you can tell which one. Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account. From George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language.”

9. Give up? Here it is from the King James: I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all. --Ecclesiastes 9:11 From George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language.”