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How to Write Good

by Frank L. Visco

(with additions by Peter C.S. Adams)

My several years in the word game have learnt me many rules:

Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)
Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
Employ the vernacular.
Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
Don't use a big word where a diminutive one will suffice.
Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
Avoid alliteration. Always.
The passive voice is to be avoided.
Correct speling is esential.
Don't use no double negatives.
Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
You will never have been needing the future perfect tense.
Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
Contractions aren't necessary.
One-word sentences? Eliminate.
About them sentence fragments.
Don't use no double negatives.
Don't use commas, that aren't necessary.
Use apostrophe's correctly.
When dangling, be careful of participles.
One should never generalize.
Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
Don't be redundant; don't more use words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
Profanity sucks.
Ad hominem attacks are only used by dispicable morons.
Be more or less specific.
Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
Understatement is always best.
Who needs rhetorical questions?
Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.

Frank L. Visco is a vice-president and senior copywriter at USAdvertising.
Peter C.S. Adams is co-owner of the PAGEMAKR mailing list.

STEPPS -- Stop Tax Exempt Private Property Sprawl -- Framingham