Some advice for your writing …in the words of great thinkers and great writers (and John Wayne)

1. Some advice for your writing • …in the words of great thinkers and great writers (and John Wayne) • ….and how this advice might help you write better essays

2. Thinking is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead. • Gene Fowler • American journalist, author and dramatist (1890 to 1960)

3. The process of putting your thoughts into words is not easy. • Everybody has difficulty breaking down the barrier between thinking and writing.

4. The great enemy of clear language is insecurity. • George Orwell • English author and journalist (1903 to 1950)

5. If you’re not sure what you’re talking about or what you want to say, the only thing that will be clear is that you are bluffing. • Don’t write what you don’t understand.

6. Grasp the subject, the words will follow. • Marcus Porcius Cato (Cato the Elder) • Roman statesman (234 to 149 BC)

7. If you understand an essay question clearly, it will be easier for you to research and write the essay. • Only start to do your research when you have understood the essay question.

8. Sloppy writing instantly reveals the sloppy mind. • James Kilpatrick • American columnist and grammarian (1920 to 2010)

9. Keep focussed on the essay question. • Focus, focus, focus and then, when you start to lose focus, step back and refocus.

10. I got into my bones the essential structure of the ordinary British sentence – which is a noble thing. • Winston Churchill • British politician and Nobel prize winning writer (1874 to 1965)

11. Learn the structure and purpose of simple sentences and write them often.

12. Memorable sentences are memorable on account of some single memorable thought. • Alexander Smith • Scottish poet (1830 to 1868)

13. Know the purpose of each sentence you write.

14. The source of bad writing is the desire to be more than a person of sense – to be thought a genius. If people would only say what they have to say in plain terms, how much more eloquent they would be. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge • English poet, literary critic and philosopher (1772 to 1834)

15. Don’t try to imitate an academic style that is not your own. • Instead, use your own voice and write simple and clear sentences. • Don’t let style dictate content.

16. The chief virtue that language can have is clearness, and nothing distracts from it so much as the use of unfamiliar words. • Hippocrates • Greek physician, the ‘father of Western medicine’ (460 to 370 BC)

17. Don’t use words you don’t know the meaning of.

18. Just tell me what you’ve gotta tell me, clear and straight and get to the point fast! • John Wayne • American actor (1907 to 1979)

19. Don’t waffle. • Address the essay question from the beginning. • Don’t write anything that does not have a clear purpose in answering the question.

20. Words are like leaves, and where they most abound, much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found. • Alexander Pope • English poet (1688 to 1744)

21. Aim to make your point with the fewest number of words. • Don’t repeat the same point. • Don’t write a quote and then • paraphrase it. • Don’t use tautologies.

22. Everything should be made as simple as possible but no simpler. • Albert Einstein • German Theoretical physicist and Nobel prize winner (1879 to 1955)

23. If you’ve make a point, add enough ideas or information to make it clear and then move on to the next thing.

24. Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original and the part that is original is not good. • Samuel Johnson • English poet, essayist, critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer (1709 to 1784)

25. Don’t make simplistic general statements or assumptions. • Don’t plagiarise.

26. It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing but I couldn’t give it up because by that time I was too famous. • Robert Benchley • American humorist and newspaper columnist (1889 to 1945)

27. Keep going!