There are multitudes of ways writers can lose credibility, annoy readers and undermine their work. Is it labor or labour- co-worker or coworker? Watch for inconsistencies in spelling, capitalizing and hyphenating words.Īre you doling out “some money,” or are you giving Tom $100? Be specific.

Watch out for “frozen ice” and “added bonuses.” “First began” and “gathered together” are other common redundancies your spellchecker might not flag. Unfortunately, the sneaky devils can slip into writing faster than you can say, “It was a dark and stormy night.” Whenever possible, replace clichés with original, fresh wording. For example: “She was able to use the key on her key ring to open the door to the storeroom to find the supply of paper stock she needed for class” could be trimmed to “She unlocked the storeroom door and found the paper stock she needed for class.”Ĭlichés are annoying. Words like an, of, if, to and the can often be removed to tighten sentences. Sticky sentences contain unnecessary words. Passive verbs, however, leave your readers wondering who’s performing the action in your sentence. Unfortunately, your spellchecker is oblivious to this important writing tactic. Keep an eye out for weak, repetitive words that gum up your work.ĭo you vary sentence length? You should. It’s easy to let words such as could, might, knew and felt sap your sentences. You want readers to glide through your work track how much introspection or backstory you’re including. King said: “The adverb is not your friend.” Most editing tools fail to highlight adverbs, which can poison your prose. Stephen King refers to them as a grammatical “ atrocity.” Here are 10 writing issues that your word processor’s grammar checker is likely missing:Īdverbs are often unnecessary.

Edit my grammar