Ever since I started using RF eight years ago, my writing in English has significantly changed, not just due to gaining a lot of vocabulary but also because of other writing habits that I will share in this thread.
My main hope with this thread is for anyone--especially fellow non-native writers of English-- to find it helpful, even if in minor ways. Since English is my second language, some of the things I'm sharing here are the result of several years of revising and continually trying to improve my language skills. So natives may find a lot of it redundant. Privileged rascals!
These are, in no particular order, the main habits I often follow when posting or writing anything in English now:
- Paragraphing: As a rule of thumb, if whatever you're writing exceeds two or three lines at most without a break, it's time to create a new paragraph and structure your sentences accordingly.
Nobody likes broken thoughts that are scrambled over multiple short paragraphs, but nobody likes squinting through a wall of text either.
- If you find that there is a big gap between one dependent clause and another, try to shorten said gap. I actually picked this one up from a book about Arabic grammar a few years ago, where it advised against "filler sentences" that split apart dependent clauses too much.
For example:
"If you troll me every time we talk like you did the last ten times and I said nothing about it because I'm too nice and you're not at all, I will put you on my ignore list."
As you can see, the first dependent clause is pretty long, so by the time one gets to the second clause, the flow of thought in the sentence may become disjointed. Instead, I try to switch the second clause with the first:
"I will put you on my ignore list if [and now this clause can be long without being a pain to read and follow]."
- Repetition of the same word within the same sentence or paragraph can make a lot of things tedious to read. This is where the many synonyms that exist in English can come in handy--a thesaurus can turn a bland sentence into a much smoother-looking one.
- This is largely a personal preference, but I avoid using abbreviations of full expressions as much as I can in forum posts. If you have to explain what "IMHO" or "WDYM" stands for to someone, it both defeats the purpose of an abbreviation (faster/handier writing) and makes the sentence look a bit harder on the eyes.
As I said, though, that one is just a personal preference. Your mileage may vary (or YMMV, I guess? ).
I hope this is useful to anyone.
(If not, oh well. I tried! I ain't charging for it anyway. Not yet.)
My main hope with this thread is for anyone--especially fellow non-native writers of English-- to find it helpful, even if in minor ways. Since English is my second language, some of the things I'm sharing here are the result of several years of revising and continually trying to improve my language skills. So natives may find a lot of it redundant. Privileged rascals!
These are, in no particular order, the main habits I often follow when posting or writing anything in English now:
- Paragraphing: As a rule of thumb, if whatever you're writing exceeds two or three lines at most without a break, it's time to create a new paragraph and structure your sentences accordingly.
Nobody likes broken thoughts that are scrambled over multiple short paragraphs, but nobody likes squinting through a wall of text either.
- If you find that there is a big gap between one dependent clause and another, try to shorten said gap. I actually picked this one up from a book about Arabic grammar a few years ago, where it advised against "filler sentences" that split apart dependent clauses too much.
For example:
"If you troll me every time we talk like you did the last ten times and I said nothing about it because I'm too nice and you're not at all, I will put you on my ignore list."
As you can see, the first dependent clause is pretty long, so by the time one gets to the second clause, the flow of thought in the sentence may become disjointed. Instead, I try to switch the second clause with the first:
"I will put you on my ignore list if [and now this clause can be long without being a pain to read and follow]."
- Repetition of the same word within the same sentence or paragraph can make a lot of things tedious to read. This is where the many synonyms that exist in English can come in handy--a thesaurus can turn a bland sentence into a much smoother-looking one.
- This is largely a personal preference, but I avoid using abbreviations of full expressions as much as I can in forum posts. If you have to explain what "IMHO" or "WDYM" stands for to someone, it both defeats the purpose of an abbreviation (faster/handier writing) and makes the sentence look a bit harder on the eyes.
As I said, though, that one is just a personal preference. Your mileage may vary (or YMMV, I guess? ).
I hope this is useful to anyone.
(If not, oh well. I tried! I ain't charging for it anyway. Not yet.)