Red Ink Beer Video Writing Instruction 9.13.14

What’s in this episode?

In this episode of Red Ink Beer, David Bowman, owner of Precise Edit and author of 9 writing guides,

• answers a reader’s question about using commas with “too” at the end of a sentence (posted at the Zen Comma blog),
• shows how to write the body of a paragraph (strategy from  Concise Guide to Technical and Academic Writing), and
• corrects a fast food restaurant’s sign with three words and three errors.

Writing skills are demonstrated with examples and instruction. The transcript is provided below.

For more information about David Bowman’s writing guides, please visit http://hostileediting.com. To contact David Bowman at Precise Edit, please email him at info@preciseedit.com.

Video time: 10:16

Red Ink Beer is supported by Precise Edit and Hostile Editing.

Red Ink Beer-Video Writing Instruction 9.9.14

What’s in this episode?

In this episode of Red Ink Beer, David Bowman, owner of Precise Edit and author of 9 writing guides,

• answers a tricky question from the Zen Comma blog about using commas between complicated items in a list
• discusses an essential writing strategy paragraph structure and how to start paragraphs from Concise Guide to Technical and Academic Writing, and
• points out a major writing failure from Twitter.

Writing skills are demonstrated with examples and instruction. For more information about David Bowman’s writing guides, please visit http://hostileediting.com.

Video: 11 minutes. Transcript provided below.

Three Strategies for Writing to Your Reader

Here are three tips from 300 Days of Better Writing about how to understand your readers and give them what they need.

Day 110: Be prepared to work hard at your writing.

Easy reading is damned hard writing.

(Nathaniel Hawthorne)

(Please excuse the curse word. It may indicate Hawthorne’s
frustration with the work necessary to produce good writing, or it
may indicate the strength with which Hawthorne believes this.)

The point of this quote is that clear, easy-to-read writing is not easy
to produce. Instead, it is the result of writing, analyzing what you
write, and re-writing—perhaps many times.

When you write, you are attempting to communicate. The more work
you put into writing, the better you will be able to communicate.
Hard work by you leads to easy understanding by your reader.

People have told me, “Writing is so easy for you.” This isn’t true. I
have practiced writing, studied writing, and analyzed what makes
writing clear. The documents they read are the result of much work:
writing, criticizing, and rewriting until they are “easy reading.”
That’s what great writers aim for: not easy writing but easy reading.