For bloggers and amateur writers, especially those who are somewhat, um, removed from English Comp in middle or high school, crafting your message with surgical precision can be frustrating. I just finished reading a book that I cannot recommend highly enough. If you are a writer who wishes to improve your technique yet who cringes at the thought of returning to school, this is a great read. You may recall from the aforementioned school that a textbook called "The Elements of Style" was used in many English composition classes. If you want to take a quick refresher course on the subject, get this book and read it again. You will be amazed, as was I, at how much you will benefit. After finishing the book, I immediately returned to page one and began rereading. So inspiring is this little book that I have now embarked upon a reading binge consisting entirely of books about writing.
It is hard to find the time to join a writing club, take a college course through an extension or online program, or to find a teacher willing to regularly critique or correct your work. This short text is the next best thing. I bought my copy from Audible.com. Getting the book in audio format is advantageous for several reasons. One reason is the convenience for commuters and people with print disabilities. another reason this alternative format is useful is that the reader is encouraged to use his or her ears as a scalpel when editing. It is valuable to hear the provided examples, along with the rules for effective English usage. Further, the notion of listening to your composition as you revise your drafts makes use of my own writing secret weapon.
At first, you may believe it to be a tip benefiting only writers who are blind, but I assure you my secret will benefit anyone. give it a try. It is simply a twist on the old advice to read your work aloud. My secret is that I use a screen reader to read aloud everything that happens on the computer. A person who is blind and who uses a computer must do so with the aid of this assistive tool. Menus, icons, error messages, dialogue boxes, email, and word processing documents are read aloud by a text-to-speech reader. The screen readers specifically for people who are blind are in most cases prohibitively expensive, but you can find simpler and cheaper text-to-speech readers that are not necessarily meant to be accessible for blind PC users.
How will this improve your writing? If you do not have a friend at hand each time you complete a draft, or you have difficulty in reading aloud while maintaining aural objectivity, the synthesized voice will be a helpful means by which to hear your prose. Now I depend entirely on my hearing to revise my work, but I remember from earlier sighted days that there seemed to be a point at which I could no longer reliably look at my text and catch the mistakes. I would often overlook punctuation and grammar errors, simply because I had reviewed the work countless times with fatigued eyes, thus diminishing accuracy.
Here’s the link to the book in audio:
The Elements of Style, revised.
Do you have a favorite book on writing to suggest? I’ll be glad to post your recommendations below. For me, writing is a great pleasure in life, partly because unlike life, I can edit, revise or delete the unacceptable. Beautiful.
LL