by Theresa Lantz

Created on: May 30, 2011   Last Updated: June 04, 2011

I entered high school full of creativity. I loved writing, but not formally. I could talk about politics, essay topics, anything- in informal format. To me, everything sounded better that way. What was the point of buttering things up? However, being in honors English, I was forced to write formal paper. If they were informal, the teacher failed our paper. Here are some of the rules I remember from my honors English class. To my English teachers, this is what real writing must consist of:

1.) Animate sentences, making them more lively. Eliminate all TBVs and other forms of passive voice. To new writers, or those who were lucky enough not to have to follow this rule, TBVs stands for "To Be Verbs". These "To Be Verbs" consist of: am, be, is, are, was, were, been, being, and to be. Any use of those TBVs are considered passive voice. To get ride of passive voice, eliminate TBVs, and try to use action verbs (She ran, He wrote, etc.).

2.) Change all lazy language to be energetic. Do not use contractions (isn't, could've). Replace normal or common words (pretty, nice, cool). Minimize prepositional phrase use (on the table, over there, to town). More than three prepositions in a row is considered too many.

3.) Do not repeat words, and get rid of all unnecessary wordiness. To do this, try to use a variety of specific words and different sentence openers. (I was taught in one essay, no two sentences should start with the same word). 

4.) Eliminate ineffective points of view. Meaning, using first and second person points of view tends to be inappropriate in the eyes of formal writing. 

5.) Use pronouns correctly, meaning always make sure the number and case match. Starting sentences with a pronoun is considered inappropriate. Only use a pronoun once the antecedent has been identified.

6.) Improve empty sentences, that mainly state the obvious. Use specific evidence to develop points and theses. Link or combine related sentences.

7.) Use all sentence structures (simple, compound, complex, compound-complex).

8.) Since complex and compound-complex sentence structure provides a framework to present numerous ideas, use these to develop important theses and topic sentences.

9.) Make sure paragraphs not only connect to the thesis, but to each other, therefore develop connections between different points and sentences to develop flow.

10.) Always spell check, or reread your work yourself. Relying on spelling and mechanics checking programs cannot be helpful.

Following these important but tedious rules will surely keep you writing in formal, academic format. (I'm pretty sure I broke all 10 of those rules!).

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