Rules for writers BY ALEX P. VIDAL


Rules for writers BY ALEX P. VIDAL

by Alex P. Vidal on Thursday, September 1, 2011 at 6:00pm
Here are 45 excellent writing rules for our grammatically-challenged generation which I plan to share with the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) for their future workshops involving college editors and campus publication advisers. This was shared to me by a female buddy, Darialyn Emmons, a literary and journalism scholar I met in 2009 at the University of Chicago.  
I am not an authority of this set of writing rules as I myself is the number one violator of these "fumblers." Like other print journalists, my columns are always badly mangled but I'm lucky to have diligent editors like The Daily Guardian Publisher-Editor Lemuel T. Fernandez and Executive Editor Francis Allan L. Angelo, who always compensated for my failure to strictly adopt and observe the "Hemingway Code," my favorite mantra when I was editor of Sun Star Iloilo and Daily Informer in the 90's.

THE RULES
1. Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary. Parenthetical words however should be enclosed in commas.
2. Never use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice.
3. Do not use exclamation points and all caps to emphasize!!!
4. Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.
5. Understatement is always the absolute best way to put forth earth-shaking ideas.
6. Use the apostrophe in its proper place and omit it when it's not needed.
7. Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
8. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
9. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.
10. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
11. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)  
12. Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.
13. Be more or less specific.
14. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary.
15. Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
16. No sentence fragments.
17. Contractions aren't necessary and shouldn't be used.
18. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
19. Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
20. One should never generalize.
21. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
22. Don't use no double negatives.
23. Eschew ampersands and abbreviations, etc.
24. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
25. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
26. The passive voice is to be ignored.
27. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
28. If you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times: Resist hyperbole; not one writer in a million can use it correctly.
29. Puns are for children, not groan readers.
30. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
31. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
32. Who needs rhetorical questions?
33. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
34. Do not put statements in the negative form.
35. A writer must not shift your point of view.
36. Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences of 10 or more words, to their antecedents.
37. Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.
38. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
39. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors.
40. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky. 
41. Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing.
42. Always pick on the correct idiom.
43. The adverb always follows the verb.
44. Be careful to use the rite homonym.
45. Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.

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