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Legal Writing

Daily Writing Tips

Are you trying to improve your writing skills? If so Daily Writing Tips is the right place for you. Featuring daily tips about grammar, spelling, punctuation, copywriting and more!

Post Frequency: 3.6/day

Last Entry: November 02, 2020 at 06:34:48

Satire, Parody, and other Forms of Ridicule

Posted on February 12, 2009
Writers have been raising laughs by ridiculing people and human behavior since at least the time of the Greek dramatists. Here are some terms to describe types of ridicule intended to make us laugh and, maybe, think. satire (n.) - This broad term applies to literature that blends criticism, wit, and ironic humor with the aim [...

Trouble with ?Did? and ?Had?

Posted on February 11, 2009
I’ve begun to notice the use of “did” in contexts that call for “had.” In an episode of CSI New York, the Sinese character remarks: If I didn’t do it, he would have killed me. He’s referring to something bad he did earlier in the episode...

Short Story Competition 2: Fifth Round is Open for Voting

Posted on February 10, 2009
Sorry for the small delay on the fifth round. It was supposed to go live yesterday in the afternoon, but we had a small technical problem. The competition is going pretty well though. On the fourth round we had close to 500 votes, and the winning story passed to the grand finale with just 13 votes over the second runner up...

Why So Much Anger Over Usage?

Posted on February 10, 2009
A few times since beginning to write for DWT I’ve had occasion to reflect on the question of what fuels the anger occasionally expressed in the comments. One explanation I’ve come up with is that because language is so much a part of our identity, the criticism of usage or pronunciation may be perceived as a [...

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Don?t Overdo ?Do?

Posted on February 09, 2009
Walking past a bank the other day I noticed a sign that said We do loans.

Love Song to a Dictionary

Posted on February 08, 2009
Most writers of English in every part of the world acknowledge the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) as a reliable reference to settle questions of spelling, pronunciation, and usage.

What Do Writers Read?

Posted on February 05, 2009
I’m always learning from readers’ comments. Something I learned recently is that not all writers agree that reading Dickens is a good thing. Dickens is not my favorite 19th century novelist–George Eliot is–but I think that modern writers can learn a lot about scene structure and the management of multiple characters and subplots from reading his [...

Tracking a Quotation

Posted on February 04, 2009
When a reader asked about the use of brackets in a recent email, I started to refer him to my post When and How to Use Brackets and leave it at that. Curiosity overcame me, however, and I tried to track down the complete original. Here’s the quotation that prompted the reader’s question: [We'll] probably never [...

The Word is ?Succumbed?

Posted on February 03, 2009
A reader asks: Does the word “sucummbed” really exist? As in “he finally sucummbed to the cold and lay face down in the snow”… What’s interesting about this question is not that succumbed is misspelled, but that this reader kept encountering this misspelling as he tried to find a definition...

What Is A Pundit or Punditry?

Posted on February 02, 2009
A reader writes: So, there I was, reading The Other McCain (Robert McCain): "the conservative movement in general tends to esteem punditry over reporting" What is the difference between punditry and reporting?

Short Story Competition 2: Fourth Round is Open for Voting

Posted on February 02, 2009
The fourth round is open for voting. If you are reading this in your email inbox or via an RSS reader, remember that you need to visit the site (by clicking on the title of this post) to be able to vote on the poll. The Prizes The competition will be sponsored by WhiteSmoke...

How Many Sentences in a Paragraph?

Posted on February 02, 2009
A DWT reader, exasperated by an online newspaper article formatted as eleven one-sentence “paragraphs,” asks for a definition of “paragraph” and wants to know how long a paragraph should be. A paragraph is a unit of thought that develops an idea...

Writing a Pitch

Posted on January 29, 2009
Those of you planning to enter the Amazon/Penguin Fiction Contest have probably written your pitch by now. Every novelist, sooner or later, must give some thought to “the pitch.” Like a synopsis a pitch must present–in a short space if written, in a few minutes if spoken–an overall description of the novel: main character/s, main [...

?Before? and ?Ago?

Posted on January 28, 2009
I came across the following sentence in a writer’s movie synopsis: [a man] passes away and bequeaths his shack on the island to a woman, a young girl that he met many years ago when he was in a prisoner of war hospital. The word that jars is ago where before is called for...

Interview with Rushang Shah, Founder of Gramlee

Posted on January 27, 2009
If you have not noticed yet, Gramlee is one of the newest sponsors of Daily Writing Tips. When they contacted me a while ago I was glad to accept them aboard, mainly because I think that they provide a useful service for both individuals and companies that want to make sure their text pieces are grammatically sound and clearly written.

How Long Should a Synopsis Be?

Posted on January 27, 2009
Say that your query letter has piqued the interest of an agent. She wants to see a synopsis, but doesn’t specify how long it should be. How do you decide? (For some reason you can’t just phone her and ask.) You can search the web for a nice simple answer...

What?s the Difference Between a Speech and an Address?

Posted on January 26, 2009
Nabil Bayouk asks: What is the difference between speech and address (noun) Used as a noun, address is not the first word one would choose in ordinary circumstances. The more common choice is speech: The candidate gave a speech. The principal’s speech went on too long...

Short Story Competition 2: Third Round is Open for Voting

Posted on January 26, 2009
A couple of people were already sending us emails asking where the third round was. Well, here it is! As an administrative note, expect the rounds to go live at around this time on Mondays. Early in the day we already the normal post from Maeve, so I figured that spacing it a bit couldn't hurt, and you still have the rest of the week to read the stories so...

What?s Your Style?

Posted on January 25, 2009
A writer’s style is the sum of sentence structure, sentence length, vocabulary, literary or cultural allusions, and world view. We all strive to create a style that will result in a distinctive “voice” that will distinguish our writing from that of others...

The Chief Justice?s Prepositional Slip

Posted on January 22, 2009
Most of the comments about the Chief Justice's verbal stumble while administering the Presidential oath focus on the adverb "faithfully."

Making Sense of ?Since?

Posted on January 21, 2009
Sometimes a word that is clear in one context, may create ambiguity in another. Consider the following excerpt from a professional newspaper review of Hotel for Dogs. The story follows 16-year-old Andi (Emma Roberts) and her 11-year-old brother Bruce (Jake T...

Body Parts as Tools of Measurement

Posted on January 20, 2009
An online writer relating the history of luggage tells how in the old days, holiday makers didn't try to manage with a mere suitcase when they went to the seaside for a week or so. They took the same kind of large trunks they would use if they were going on a long voyage:

Dealing With A Character?s Internal Thoughts

Posted on January 19, 2009
Suzanne Ouimet writes: I have written several books which are 'dialogue driven'. What I am wondering is how to express my characters' thoughts. It gets a bit tiresome to keep saying something like 'he thought to himself'. (who else would he be talking to anyway?) I have also tried putting the character's thoughts in italics or some other font...

Short Story Competition 2: Second Round is Open for Voting

Posted on January 19, 2009
The competition is starting to warm up. On the first round the winner beat the runner up by just one vote! Below you will find the eight stories that are competing on the second round. Remember that the winner of each round will be presented on the Grand Finale at the end of the competition, and that is where the overall winner will emerge from...

Reflections on ?Versus?

Posted on January 19, 2009
The following sentence from an editorial about a money-saving measure taken by our local county government caught my eye: It's about cost-effective verses cheap.

Swiss Army Knife for Writers

Posted on January 15, 2009
Until now, the only Thesaurus on my shelves was Roget’s, and it was gathering dust because I quit using it years ago. I found it more useful to look up a word in a regular dictionary and see what synonyms were offered. Not ideal, but it gave me more options than Roget’s...

Time to Re-Read Orwell?

Posted on January 14, 2009
George Orwell didn’t have time to collect many royalties on his phenomenally successful novel 1984. The dystopic novel that has since influenced so many other writers and contributed words and even suffixes to our vocabulary, was published mid-1949...

Are You Guilty of Genericide?

Posted on January 13, 2009
You won’t find it in Merriam-Webster (yet), but genericide has a legal meaning. The “death” specified as genericide is that of a trademark word that has become a common generic term. Some words that started out as brand names and “died” into a state of generic terms are: aspirin, bundt cake, cellophane, ditto, dry ice, escalator,?granola, [...

Short Story Competition 2: First Round Is Open for Voting

Posted on January 13, 2009
Sorry for the small delay. The first round was supposed to go live yesterday, but I had some technical problems on my side. From now on all other rounds will go live on Mondays though. Thanks for all the readers that sent their stories too. The participation rate was excellent, with over 90 entries, which tops the 86 entries we had on the last competition.

Internet Marketing and Online Busieness Training Program

Posted on January 12, 2009
No writing tip on this post, be warned. If you are interested in learning Internet marketing and in creating your own online business, though, read on. My name is Daniel Scocco, and I am the owner of Daily Writing Tips (most of you probably know this by now...

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