Search Engine Optimization

Here’s a little cheat sheet I made a while ago on writing. Use it to make your writing more alive.
Active Voice:

subject >>> verb >>> direct object

— in active voice you identify an “actor” (for instance, a person or organization) and what the action is.

As a rule, avoid making one passive depend directly upon another.  

Always talk about the subject at the forefront. Identify the subject of each sentence and make it affect all other elements in a sentence.

• First, look for a verb phrase containing a form of the verb to be plus the word by. If the actual word by isn’t present, try to mentally insert it. “Seniors are covered.”  . . .. “Seniors are covered by. . .”
• Second, identify the verb before by. In our example, that verb is “covered.” A form of “covered” will become the active verb in the new sentence.
• Third, ask “covered by what? or covered by whom”? In this example, the answer is Medicare. Medicare becomes the subject of the new sentence in the active voice: Medicare covers seniors.

 “ . . . We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender. . . .” He didn’t say: “Engagement will take place on the beaches, action will be seen on the landing grounds, in the fields and on the streets . . . Giving up is not an option now or in the future. . . .”  

Bad: Walking slowly down the road, he saw a woman accompanied by two children.

Good: He saw a woman, accompanied by two children, walking slowly down the road.

—-Put statements in positive form.

Make definite assertions. Avoid tame, colorless, hesitating, non-committal language. Use the word not as a means of denial or in antithesis, never as a means of evasion.

Omit needless words.

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.  Many expressions in common use violate this principle:

Express co-ordinate ideas in similar form.

Cut

It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug. The attraction of this way of writing is that it is easy. It is easier — even quicker, once you have the habit — to say In my opinion it is not an unjustifiable assumption that than to say I think. If you use ready-made phrases, you not only don’t have to hunt about for the words; you also don’t have to bother with the rhythms of your sentences since these phrases are generally so arranged as to be more or less euphonious.

OPERATORS OR VERBAL FALSE LIMBS. make contact with, be subjected to, give rise to, give grounds for, have the effect of, play a leading part (role) in, make itself felt, take effect, exhibit a tendency to, serve the purpose of, etc., etc. with respect to, having regard to, the fact that, by dint of, in view of, in the interests of, on the hypothesis that; greatly to be desired, cannot be left out of account, a development to be expected in the near future, deserving of serious consideration, brought to a satisfactory conclusion

PRETENTIOUS DICTION. phenomenon, element, individual (as noun), objective, categorical, effective, virtual, basic, primary, promote, constitute, exhibit, exploit, utilize, eliminate, liquidate, are used to dress up a simple statement and give an air of scientific impartiality to biased judgements.

MEANINGLESS WORDS. In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning(2). Words like romantic, plastic, values, human, dead, sentimental, natural, vitality, as used in art criticism, are strictly meaningless, in the sense that they not only do not point to any discoverable object, but are hardly ever expected to do so by the reader.

• Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
• Never use a long word where a short one will do.
• If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
• Never use the passive where you can use the active.
• Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous