Comments on: 5 Easy Ways To Improve Your Writing

By: Links: 21st Anniversary 2010 Edition

Links: 21st Anniversary 2010 Edition — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 15:28:51 +0000

[...] 10 Words You Need to Stop Misspelling: Love this from the Oatmeal. Almost enough to buy the poster, but hey I got young’uns in the house. Oatmeal’s How to Use an Apostrophe and What Your Email Address Says about Your Computer Skills also rock. [Link: Josh Hanagarne] [...]

By: Bryce

Bryce — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 04:25:26 +0000

That oatmeal page is hilarious! Excellent post, thanks for the tips. You can tell your wife you’re strong too!

By: Josh Hanagarne

Josh Hanagarne — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 23:44:42 +0000

Mitch, I’m going to tell my wife that I’m cool now. She needs to hear it.

By: Mitch Seagon$

Mitch Seagon$ — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 21:34:37 +0000

Josh, you are cool. Thank you.

By: Josh Hanagarne

Josh Hanagarne — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 18:55:21 +0000

Very nice. Very true.

By: We Fly Spitfires

We Fly Spitfires — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 16:37:09 +0000

I would also add “Don’t Overthink Things”. I find that I write the best when I’m not trying to write

By: Heather

Heather — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 12:36:17 +0000

One you inadvertently missed, but works just as well. . . read your stuff out loud. Got run-on sentences? Using “and” a lot? Are you being downright improper and dangling your participles? Does a sentence just plain SUCK? We teach our seniors to do this with their Senior Quest papers, so that they can write a better final speech. A lot of our kids have found that they can also improve and tighten their writing skills simply by sitting down and reading their papers out loud, either to a good friend or–even better–to and BY themselves, correcting as they go. Sometimes stuff “looks” like it will “read” just fine, but when you HEAR it, it may be a different matter altogether. Just an idea. . .

By: Eric | Eden Journal

Eric | Eden Journal — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 12:31:57 +0000

The one word spell check always catches me on is “definitely.” After reading “10 Words You Need to Stop Misspelling,” I will never ever misspell it again.

One additional tip. “Let it sit.” I always like to let my posts sit for an hour or a day or a couple days before I post them up on my blog. After a bit of time, I’m able to read them with a fresh set of eyes. By doing this I’m more easily able to review the post for content, flow, and spelling.

For your band, you need to do something clever to replace the “of” with an “i” word, so we can call you “BiG.”

By: Todd

Todd — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 12:20:42 +0000

Wonderful advice, Josh. I second the awesomeness of StoryFix. While I don’t meet *any* of the criteria for the Band of Giants (BoG), I wish you luck in your musical career. You’re gonna be a big star–a jukebox hero. (for those too young to know what a jukebox is, think iPod the size of a washing machine).