Learn to Spot

Adverbs

Crayola syndrome

Cliche

Default to shorter words

Avoid repetition

Overview

• Precise rather than vague
• Graceful, not awkward
• Not ambiguous, but clear
• Fresh is better than clichéd

quotation marks

Exclamation points

Overused words

• unique
• literally - often used incorrectly
• myself
• particular
• personally

E.B. White Writing

apostrophes

• mindful writing
• plurals and apostrophes
• ending in "s" and possessive?
• singular or proper name ... add "s"
• plural ending in "s" ... don't add

and of course contractions

• you're = you are, it's = it is
• possessive = its

Hyphens

• evolution - base ball, base-ball, baseball
• after prefixes ... un, self, ex, non, re
• when? dictionary

dash

• colon substitute
• in place of parentheses

comma

• Dependent phrase
• Dependent clause with conjunction.
• independent clause with conjunction

Use an active voice
The dog licked the kid.

Avoid passive voice
The kid was licked by the dog.
Was

If you can insert “by zombies” after the verb and it makes sense, it’s passive voice.