What to Avoid in Formal Writing

1. What to Avoid in Formal Writing

2. Use appropriate punctuation. For example, American English employs a colon in a formal letter as in “Dear John:” but British English employs a comma.[1] Limit parentheses, exclamation points, and dashes (prefer colons) in formal writing. Avoid the ampersand (&); write out the word “and.” Punctuate your writing as you go along to reduce your risk of leaving out punctuation.  Use Appropriate Punctuation. For example American English employs a colon in a formal letter as in “Dear John:” British English employs a comma. Limit parentheses, exclamation points, and dashes (prefer colons) in formal writing. Avoid the ampersand (&); write out the word “and.” Punctuate your writing as you go along to reduce your risk of leaving out punctuation

3. Avoid common colloquial words and expressions (colloquialisms) Such as: • Cute - use "adorable" • yeah - use “yes” • Movie - use "film" This includes slang such as : Cool - Dude - and - Humongous." Two good phrases to delete are “as we/you know" and “you might be thinking.” You do not have the power to know your readers’ thoughts while they read your paper. And not everybody knows the same things. Another empty sentence is “Think about it.” Assume that your readers are already thinking about what they are reading, and state your point more clearly.

4. Do not use Contractions. • Note that the full form of "can't" is one word: "cannot," not "can not.“

5. Try to Avoid the First and Second Person • Formal writing often tries to be objective, and the pronouns "I" and "you" tend to imply subjectivity. • Phrases such as "I think that" can be deleted from a sentence when it is obvious that this is the author’s opinion. • Using the pronoun "I" is almost always acceptable in personal writing, and the pronoun "you" is almost always acceptable in letters and how-to’s. • In the most formal writing, the pronoun “I” is replaced by the pronoun “we”; this is known as the royal we or the editorial we. Formal writing generally avoids the pronoun “you” when it refers to people in general.