New York: HarperCollins College Publishers, 1994. writing_center@unc.edu, Hours Play the word association game in the tools tab when you have writer's block. Whether you're a blogger, novelist, SEO professional, or student writing an essay for school, Slick Write can help take your writing to the next level. An independent clause is a group of words that contains a noun and a verb, and could stand alone as a sentence. Getting to the point promptly can help you become a clearer thinker and a more engaging writer. Common examples of redundant pairs include: full and complete, each and every, hopes and dreams, whole entire, first and foremost, true and accurate, always and forever. Revision: Sally took the letter to the mailbox. This is a measure of the sentence variety, and a major contributor to flow. Passive sentences can also frustrate or confuse your readers, who must wait patiently to find out who or what did the action of the sentence. Critique and Flow will be hidden. Cook, Claire Kehrwald. We consulted these works while writing the original version of this handout. Chapel Hill, NC 27599 Williams, Joseph M. Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity & Grace, 4th edition. Add or subtract prepositional phrases and adjectives to modify your work's flow by changing sentence lengths. The job market is competitive. Resources on clear and concise writing Websites, books and tools Cut it out Get more tips and tools for making every piece you write easier to read and understand. These phrases make your writing more difficult to understand. Her dress was long, and it touched the floor. For the sake of convenience, we've created a special preset for this. You can increase this number by making long sentences longer, and short ones shorter. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no … Trim a few words from this sentence, or add a few to the previous one. This tab shows your quotations highlighted as Slick Write sees them. (This helps prevent spam. These words and phrases often show the author's bias. Tweaks like this may not seem like much, but they can add up. Not all types of writing are thesis-driven, but all writing has an intended audience. This tab shows repeated words and phrases plus a wealth of other statistics. If you are not an experienced writer or editor, it is easy to write a prolix sentence. Curious? Learning to recognize wordiness, repetition, and vague or unnecessary language is an important tool to ensure your writing expresses your ideas as clearly and concisely as possible. Bust your writer's block, and create new metaphors by playing the word association game. In a thesis-driven essay, every part of your paper should be geared toward proving that argument. They often mark phases you can reduce to one or two words. … This preset checks for common indicators of deception, either by lying or omission, and is based on the findings of. Since burritos taste good, I like to eat them. Consult a dictionary when necessary. This option will detect most common types of similes. Writing Clearly. You might consider pasting the text of the assignment into a tool like Wordle to see what the most prominent themes and words are. Craft it using powerful tools including a full-manuscript search, notes attached to your text, categorized to do lists, … They will usually be preceded by a subordinating word. When writing, you should always have your readers in mind and consider what they need to know. Do you want us to add a new feature? Using an extension is the easiest way to submit your work to Slick Write. “The reason for”, “due to the fact that”, “in light of the fact that”, “given the fact that”, and “considering the fact that” can be replaced with because, since, or why. While BriefCatch is an excellent way to tighten up an individual project, it is also an incredible educational tool because it … Flow is an important factor in reader engagement. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial. In most cases, they can be replaced with one or two words, or even deleted. Abstract words lack specificity and overusing them can make even simple concepts difficult to understand. It is said that one day, passive voice will bring weakness to your prose. Clicking on a word will display a list of the most common words that are nearby. Another example: The letter was taken to the mailbox by Sally. A transitive verb is preceded by an auxilliary verb such as "be" or "get." Created by Adam & Ben Long.Adam & Ben Long. Reusing linking verbs can make a sentence sound repetitive and boring. Alternatively, Do you love Slick Write? Long sentences tend to be more difficult to read, making them good candidates for trimming or splitting. A word used twice in a row may be a typo. Gain an advantage, impress employers, and land more interviews by demonstrating professionalism and superior communication skills on your resumé. Using any form of "be" before an adjective weakens the description. Consider revising your document if it scores over 100. Slick Write is a powerful, FREE application that makes it easy to check your writing for grammar errors, potential stylistic mistakes, and other features of interest. ), Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our, Success with Style: Using Writing Style to Predict the Success of Novels, Suggestions from the official See Sharp Press blog. Disable these hints. Adverbs ending in "-ly" are considered the worst offenders. Open any book on writing and you’ll find the same advice: Never use ten words where five will do. Line by Line: How to Edit your Own Writing. Popular novels aimed at American adults tend to be written in the 7th to 9th grade range, which mirrors the reading capability of the average American adult. Limit Your Use of Adverbs. At times, you may choose to keep a sentence just as it is, even though there are more concise ways to express your idea: you might, for example, use repetition to emphasize a point or include a redundant pair of words (a subject we’re just about to discuss) to create a certain rhythm. Writing concise … Official free Pre-AP English writing practice. What’s important is that you make a conscious choice. Your manuscript is more than just words—it’s a work of art. SpringBoard Activities. This is a measure of the amount of variation in the length of a text's sentences. They are usually considered poor form. … When you're only interested in one or two stylistic features, use the Blank Slate preset to turn everything else off. This tab shows stylistic features and flaws within the document. © 2013-2019 .38 Long LLC. Resubmit to see configuration changes take effect. Campus Box #5135 These antiquated, arcane words and phrases will make your writing look like a contract. English is a difficult language, so using correct grammar and diverse vocabulary will set you apart from the crowd. Slang can add character to fiction, but should be avoided in formal writing. Writers often fill sentences with weak or unnecessary words that can be deleted or replaced. Click an orange flow meter to get suggestions. BriefCatch is a powerful tool tailored to address legal writers’ most common pitfalls. These can be deleted in almost all cases without affecting the meaning of the sentence. Placing a subordinating conjunction at the end of a sentence is against the rules. This tool analyzes the textual patterns of any piece to render the best results. But identifying what to cut is often easier said than done. For example, when writing a paper for your psychology class on Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams, you probably do not have to start by saying “Sigmund Freud is one of the most famous psychiatrists of all time.” In most college papers, you should imagine that your audience is composed of educated readers who are not taking your class and are not experts on your current topic. Whether you're a blogger, novelist, SEO professional, or student writing an essay for school, Slick Write can help take your writing … Each is a moving average, with word length weighted to the sentences before and after. Double negatives are almost always poor style. Online Automatic Text Summarization Tool - Autosummarizer is a simple tool that help to summarize text articles extracting the most important sentences. You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, The Writing Center When revising, critically examine each paragraph and ask yourself whether it is necessary to your overall thesis. Trim a few words from this sentence, or add a few to the next one. Using more than three prepositional phrases in a sentence can make it cumbersome. In an active sentence, the subject (the person or thing doing the action) comes first. We would love to hear about it. By deleting unnecessary qualifiers, you can often eliminate one or two words per sentence. This is where you'll find tools to help you critique your work. The student wrote a clear and concise sentence! Often we use qualifiers that really aren’t necessary to express our meaning (such as “really” in this sentence). WRITING CONCISE SENTENCES Vigorous writing is concise. Try the interactive demo, or check your own document. To make this sentence more concise, move the subject to the front and get rid of the “to be” verb (in this case, “was”). Sometimes this proof will come in the form of direct evidence supporting your thesis; other times you will be addressing counterarguments. Click highlighted text to get more information, and decide for yourself what the best course of action is. The machine placed here is an … Knowing how to write concisely will serve you well in many situations. In this passive construction, the meaning of the sentence is clear, but there are more words than necessary. Need a writing prompt? A few of the words on this list can also function as other parts of speech. You can change how dialog is handled in the settings tab. Official free SpringBoard writing practice. Long sentences will be indicated by a red line on the graph. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1985. Word length is a minor contributor to overall flow, but even minor variations are signs of good rhythm. Pieces with good flow will make use of all four sentence types, varying them to keep the reader interested. Most educated readers will know who Freud is and will not need such a general reminder. Strengthen Weak Adjectives. This will give it a more lively feel, which improves the flow of the surrounding paragraph. Choose the word that most clearly conveys … Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. Every paragraph in your essay must have a purpose. An outline is an important tool in the writing … The tool below will help you craft what you write to make it clear and concise. Expresso is a little tool to edit texts and improve your writing style. Similes and metaphors should be used sparingly. Editor’s spelling and basic grammar checks will be available to everyone, and Microsoft 365 subscribers — including the new Microsoft 365 Personal and Family productivity subscriptions announced today — can opt to use more advanced AI features that offer intelligent suggestions for making writing more concise… Slick Write is a powerful, free application that makes it easy to check your writing for grammar errors, potential stylistic mistakes, and other features of interest. Sentence length is a major contributor to the level of education required to read a body of text. This will help you decide if the area needs to be reworked. Identify the important ideas and facts. Hover over a sentence to see its word count. Like abstract words, weasel words and phrases lack specificity. Well, I guess that’s the second step because first you need a script. I know what I'm doing. These over-used, informal phrases should be avoided like the plague under most circumstances. This tool helps you eliminate or enhance repetition. Examining word choice, concision, … A dependent clause is a group of three or more words that contains a noun and a verb, but can't form a sentence. When editing a large document, check it in smaller chunks to get fast responses. Most novels score between 0.5 and 0.9, and popular ones often score near the high end of the range. Are you human? Revision: John Adams wrote the 1780 Massachusetts Constitution. Consider rephrasing sentences that contain them. Keeping this to a minimum will pep your sentences up. I’ve just mentioned a crucial rule for concise writing: limit your adverbs … This book should be used by everyone who has to write anything. To quickly find associations for your own text, highlight a word or phrase in it, and use the toolbox popup. Transitions connect ideas, and help the reader progress. At best, they convey uncertainty. How does your writing rate? Click each type of meter for more specific explanations. If your writing is concise, it … This process could be painful, especially if you have done a lot of research you’d like to include or need more words to meet a page limit, but it will strengthen your paper. Tweet. Function words carry little meaning, but serve as glue for sentences. “In the event that” and “under circumstances in which” can be replaced with if.”It is necessary that” and “cannot be avoided” can be replaced with must or should. You might want to. You’ll get the gist of any article, essay, research paper or any other text compressed into just a couple of sentences! The first step in writing a focused, concise essay is to stick to the script without meandering off into another subject. At least one, and if it scores over 100 as other parts speech... Word association game in the settings tab to tailor the stats tab write sees them few the. General reminder Ten Lessons in Clarity & Grace, 4th edition bad in small,. 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