HOW TO WRITE GOOD

1. Avoid alliteration. Always.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)
4. Employ the vernacular.
5. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
7. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
8. Contractions aren't necessary.
9. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
10. One should never generalize.
11. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
12. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
13. Don't be redundant; don't use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
14. Be more or less specific.
15. Understatement is always best.
16. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
17. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
18. The passive voice is to be avoided.
19. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
20. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
21. Who needs rhetorical questions?
22. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.

haha those are funny =o)

Haha they are cool

I think my kids at school need some of these.... the ones who can read anyway:)..
sorry that sounds so mean(especially as I know I teach high school kids) but it is so true

The one that isn't on there is on a t-shirt of mine:

"ESCHEW OBFUSCATION" Goes over real well in a truckstop let me tell you.

My other favorite shirt has a silk-screen image of Stonehenge and in celtic writing underneath reads:

"Gimme that Old Time Religion."

To Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before!

USAPianoTrucker, you stole my thunder! "Eschew obfuscation" has always been our family motto. I can't say I've ever used it at a truck stop, though. Probably that's why I'm still here to post messages.

I did think I was a good writer. Now I don't. Thanks!

[edit]

On second thought, screw this list! If I weren't the number one fan of conditionals and subjunctives, I would not object.

Alliteration is not the domain of high school poet hacks. If it's good enough for Chaucer, it's good enough for us, still.

God, why am I so sensitive?

[/edit]

I dropped out of school when I were 16.