Where my highlighter went in Chapter 10

In “On Writing Well,” William Zinsser calls Chapter 10 “Bits and Pieces." But he could have called it “Details Make the Difference” as far as I’m concerned. He covers everything from punctuation to paragraph lengths (“Keep your paragraphs short”). While I don't consider this the absolute guide on punctuation (I like the appendix in the AP Stylebook), it does give good general advice on the most used marks.

Here are my favorite lines in the chapter:

“Verbs are the most important of all your tools. They push the sentence forward and give it momentum. Active verbs push hard; passive verbs tug fitfully.”

As some of you pointed out Tuesday night, there are good reasons for using passive verbs – when you don’t know who is doing the action and for variety in sentence structure, two of the reasons you gave. Another good reason came from “Writing Tools” this past week on Page 24 where Roy Peter Clark points out that using the passive verb calls attention to the receiver of the action, effective especially when you are writing about a victim. Still, active verbs should be the dominant choice if you want your writing to move forward.

“Most adverbs are unnecessary . . . Most adjectives are also unnecessary.” Zinsser says in many places that everything in your writing should be doing work. Qualifiers are no exception: “Make your adjective do work that needs to be done.” If you use an adverb or adjective, ask yourself what function it is performing in your sentence. Is the describing/qualifying necessary to understanding? Does it tie in with something else in the writing?

Here’s a point I repeated several times Tuesday, but probably never made it as well as Zinsser does: “Always make sure your readers are oriented. Always ask yourself where you left them in the previous sentence.”

No non-fiction writing class should go very long without a reminder of how important accuracy is. Why is the smallest detail so important? Here’s Zinsser’s answer: “If the reader catches you in just one bogus statement that you are trying to pass off as true, everything you write thereafter will be suspect.”

And one final point that you’ll probably get tired of hearing me say. But I think it is where the emphasis needs to be in the writing process: “Rewriting is the essence of writing well; it’s where the game is won or lost.”

Couple reminders on assignments: Read chapters 12 and 13 in “Economical Writing.” In "Writing Tools," read No. 5 on adverbs and apply Exercises 2, 3, and 4 to the writing you should now be doing on your 700-word assignment due on Nov. 16.