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Frohnmayer's & Nafziger's
31 Nitty-Gritty Writing Rules

  1. Each pronoun agrees with their antecedent.
  2. Just between you and I, case is important.
  3. Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
  4. Watch out for irregular verbs which has crope into our language.
  5. Don't use no double negatives.
  6. A writer mustn't shift your point of view.
  7. When dangling, don't use participles.

    A participle is a complex word,
    Acts both as adjective and as verb.
    When dangling the meaning is unclear,
    So listen closely and you will hear.
  8. Join clauses good, like a conjunction should.
  9. Don't write a run-on sentence you got to punctuate it.
  10. About sentence fragments.
  11. In letters themes reports articles and stuff like that we use commas to keep a string of them apart.
  12. Don't use commas, which aren't necessary.
  13. Its important to use apostrophe's right.
  14. Don't abbrev.
  15. Check to see if you any words out.
  16. In my opinion I think that an author when he is writing shouldn't get into the habit of making use of too many unnecessary words that he does not really need.
  17. It is wrong to completely split the infinitive.
  18. A preposition is something you shouldn't end a sentence with.
  19. Spel carefully and PROO FREAD!
  20. Use orthodox spelling thruout.
  21. The active voice should be used whenever possible.
  22. Don't overuse the exclamation mark!!
  23. Don't overuse "legal" phraseology; the aforesaid does not, however, proscribe, foreclose and/or abolish, pro tanto, each and every exception hereinafter described, respectively, in regard to thereto.
  24. Hopefully, you will not gross out with colloquialisms.
  25. Do not use adverbs unusually.
  26. Unless it is not really warranted, try not to put language in anything but positive form.
  27. It may seem sort of different than ordinary speech, but irregardless of what you've heard, write according to the rules.
  28. Make sure that expressions are as good or better than if they were rearranged.
  29. Be careful in using S' in the possessive.
  30. Avoiding redundancy means maintaining a clear focus on basic essential fundamentals.
  31. Last but not least, lay off clichés.
Corrections to other common mistakes:
  • A participial phrase at the beginning of a sentence must refer to the subject.
  • Don't join independent clauses by a comma.
  • Enclose parenthetical expressions between commas.

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