Kerry

Perhaps you struggle with crafting elegant and effective prose. Fear not, gentle reader! Some simple guidelines are available to assist you.

1. Avoid alliteration. Always.

2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.

3. Avoid clichés like the plague.

4. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc., and don’t use contractions.

5. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are to be avoided.

6. Remember that it is wrong to ever split an infinitive.

7. Foreign words and phrases, though en vogue, are not apropos.

8. One should never generalize.

9. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."

10. Comparisons are as bad as clichés.

11. Don't be redundant, don't keep repeating the same point using different words, and don’t just say the same thing in several different ways.

12. Be more or less specific.

13. Subtlety is by far the greatest thing ever.

14. One-word sentences? Eliminate.

15. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.

16. The passive voice is to be avoided.

17. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.

18. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.

19. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.

20. Who needs rhetorical questions?

(Modified by the author, original source unknown)