English Lesson "Less is more"
Whilst many posts and sites have good english there is also much content that is too long and/or containing long sections of text that could be reduced. In todays fast paced world where time is at a premium, this is often off putting and discourages the viewer from spending time on site.
A rough example (Not from any blog!:)
"The dog Rover took a while to bury her bone in the garden. She wanted a safe place to bury the bone so that other dogs would not find it. Rover found a safe secluded part of the garden and buried her bone there, where no other dogs would find it."
This could be replaced by:
"The dog Rover eventually buried her bone in a secluded part of the garden, safe from other dogs."
The trick is to reduce the amount of text as much as possible but without causing loss of meaning.
I am no english expert but do hope that the odd tutorial would perhaps help those of you who seem to be struggling, It can be a difficult and intimidating language, even to those of us who have it as our mother tongue!
Recent Comments
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Thanks for the nice comments everyone. I was just thinking about some of the authors who try to sell their product on "Smashwords." Whilst they can bypass the publishers by going there, I've noticed in reading some the books, that many have also bypassed any proper editing, to their detriment!
Absolutely right Shawn!
The old saying "if you haven't hit oil after a couple of minutes, stop boring" sums it up succinctly!
I wonder how many thousands of users have quickly clicked away from "boring" sites, never to return!?
~Arthur
So true! It's very important to carefully read and re read what you've written to check for errors and to make sure you're not being boring and/or repetitive.
Years ago I was encouraged by one of my Uni tutors to read everything I wrote OUT LOUD. I still do it and if I find myself stumbling and hesitating over what I've written I know I need to do some editing!
A very good point, I know just from personal experience that if a website goes on and on and on about something that couldn't be shortened into one paragraph then I have a tendency to move on to the next site
Nice way to succinctly say the same thing. It sounds so much better.