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The Rules of Writing

(in alphbetical order)

It has come to our considered attention that in a large majority of cases, far too many people use a great deal more words than is absolutely necessary when engaged in the practice of writing sentences. If you proofread and edit your work, you can find that by rereading and editing, a great deal of redundant repetition can be removed and eliminated by rereading, proofreading, and editing, so you should reread and edit to remove and eliminate these redundant repetitions.

"Avoid overuse of 'quotation "marks."'"

a sentence should begin with a capital letter and end with punctuation

A writer must not shift your point of view.

About those sentence fragments. Remember subject, verb, object.

Also too, never, ever, ever be redundantly repetitive; don't use more words than necessary; it's highly superflu-ous.

Also, always avoid all awkward and affected alliteration.

Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.

Always be looking out for "be" verbs, for they are supplying verbiage all scholars are discouraging.

Always pick on the correct idiom.

Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.

And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.

Avoid colloquial stuff, and trendy locutions that sound flaky.

Avoid commas, that are not necessary, and don't overuse exclamation marks!!!

Avoid the use of dyed-in-the-wool cliches like the plague; they are old hat.

Avoid using sesquipedalian words.

Avoidification of neologisms strengthenifies your prosification.

Be carefully to use adjectives and adverbs correct.

Be more or less specific.

Bee careful two use the write homonym.

Between you and I, case is important.

Beware of and eschew pompous prolixity, and avoid the utilization of enlarged words when shortened ones will suffice.

Beware of malapropisms. They are a communist submersive plot.

Comparisons are as bad as cliches.

Continuity of thought, logical development and smooth transitions are important. Never leave the reader guess-ing.

Contractions aren't necessary and shouldn't be used.

Correct speling is esential.

DO NOT overuse exclamation points and all caps to emphasize!!!

Do not put statements in the negative form.

Don't be redundant; don't use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.

Don't never use no double negatives.

Don't string too many prepositional phrases together unless you are walking through the valley of the shadow of death.

Don't use no double negatives.

Don't verb nouns.

Each pronoun agrees with their antecedent.

Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary. Parenthetical words however should be enclosed in commas.

Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."

Employ the vernacular.

Eschew ampersands & abbrevs, etc...

Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.

Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing.

Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.

Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.

Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms, ya know?

Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.

Good writers do not use one verb tense in one part of a sentence, and then have switched to a different tense in the next.

Hyphenate between sy-llables and avoid un-necessary hyphens.

If a dependent clause precedes an independent clause put a comma after the dependent clause.

If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.

If the writer is considerate of the reader, he won't have a problem with ambiguous sentences.

If you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times: Resist hyperbole; not one writer in a million uses it correctly.

In all cases, you should never generalize.

In letters compositions reports and things like that use commas to keep a string of items apart.

In statements involving two word phrases, make an all out effort to use hyphens, but make sure you hyp-henate properly.

It is incumbent on us to eschew archaisms.

It is not resultful to transform one part of speech into another by prefixing, suffixing, or other alterings.

It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.

Join clauses good like a conjunction should.

Kill all exclamation points!!!

Never leave a transitive verb just lay there without an object.

Never use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice.

Never use a preposition to end a sentence with.

No sentence fragments.

One should never generalize.

One word sentences? Eliminate!

Only Proper Nouns should be capitalized.

Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary.

Perform a functional iterative analysis on your work to root out third generation transitional buzzwords.

Place pronouns as closely as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents.

Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.

Profanity is for assholes; it makes writing crappy.

Proofread carefully to see if you words out.

Puns are for children, not groan readers.

Run on sentences cause all sorts of problems for readers and people should never use them and must try to write better and divide their sentences.

Sentences without verbs--bad idea.

Simplify! How? Eliminate one-word sentences.

Steer clear of incorrect forms of verbs that have snuck in the language.

The de facto use of foreign phrases vis-a-vis plain English in your written tete-a-tetes is not apropros.

The passive voice is to be avoided.

This sentence no verb. Which is not a complete sentence, but merely a subordinate clause.

Try to not ever split infinitives.

Understatement is always the absolute best way to put forth earth-shaking ideas.

Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all.

Use delightful but irrelevant extra adjectives and adverbs with sparing and parsimonious infrequency, for they unnecessarily bloat your otherwise perfect sentence.

Use hyphens in compound-words, not just where two-words are related.

Use language that includes all men.

Use parallel structure when you write and in speaking.

Use the apostrophe in it's proper place and omit it when its not needed.

Use the semicolon properly, always use it where it is appropriate; and never where it isn't.

Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.

Usually, you should be more or less specific.

Vary your words variously so as to use various words.

Verbs has to agree with their antecedents.

Verbs has to agree with their subjects, and the adverb always follows the verb.

When composing informal documents, employ the vernacular.

When dangling, watch your participles.

Who needs rhetorical questions?