How to Not Write Bad: The Most Common Writing Problems and the Best Ways to Avoid Them

Reading "How Not to Write Bad" by Ben Yagoda is an experience similar to hearing a recording of your voice on a tape recorder for the first time. *Gaaak!* That's how I sound? *Aaargh!* I've been writing incorrect English all these years?If only I had a handbook on proper writing to help me mend my errant ways.It happens that I have several, and this one is no better than the rest. This book's utility evaporates once you discover a that it lacks an index. Let's say that you are confused by the most common mistake in grammar: when to use *lay* and when to use *lie.* Nobody gets that right: I've had M.D.s tell me to *lay* down on the examination table. "Now I lay me down to sleep?"  As I Lay Dying ? I laid in bed all morning? I'm lying there now? -- Help! As far as I can tell, the only way to find the answer to this in "How Not to Write Bad" is to read the entire book, then dog-ear (dogear - Yagoda doesn't like hyphens) the page for future reference. I now have about twenty different pages so mutilated,The table of contents is of no use because of Professor Yagoda's fondness for using cutesie titles: 1. Sanitized 2. Skunked 3. Still Wrong 7. When You Catch a Preposition, Kill It 8. To Use to Be or Not to Use to Be 9. What the Meaning of "Is Is" IsProfessor Yagoda does mention the lay/lie quandary, but he only devotes one short and inadequate paragraph to it, after which he maintains that that one should say, "The Count Basie band really swang!" No one but an English professor ever spoke such a sentence. Even  my 1942 Dictionary  lists *swang* as archaic. He spends more time quoting mistakes from the papers of his students and putting screamingly unfunny titles above them.Professor Yagoda is also really persnickety -- but not where it counts. In contrast to his minimal explanation of lie/lay, he spends an entire page explaining that when you abbreviate 1960s (which he wisely observes has no apostrophe) to '60s, the apostrophe appears backwards in Microsoft Word. (I'm using  AppleWorks 6.2.9 , so I'm not having that problem.) He then provides detailed instructions for turning the single-quote mark into a comma. If you think that's the stupidest thing you ever heard of (I mean, who cares?), Professor Yagoda, starting a sentence with a conjunction, disagrees: "But to me it counts as bad writing."He's obsessive-compulsive about that, but he neglects to mention other knotty problems with apostrophes. I agree with him (and so does the  The Associated Press Stylebook ) that the '60s should have no apostrophe before the s. (Harry Shaw in  Punctuate It Right  disagrees and advises putting an apostrophe before the s, and so does  Warriner's English Grammar and Composition . I can't find any mention of this in  Strunk & White .) How is it then, that Professor Yagoda provides no advice on including apostrophes in the following sentences?§ All players with 3's on their uniforms form a line here.§ Mississippi is spelled with four s's, four i's, and two p's.§ Count the number of and's in that paragraph.To find out what to do, you'll have to purchase a better book. The same is true of the problem of when to use *whom* instead of *who*. Only one sentence is devoted to it. *Who?* He commands us to use asterisks in place of italics when only ASCII is available, but neglects to inform us if the final asterisk is placed inside or outside the punctuation.Professor Yagoda stands steadfast against against neologisms to the point that he warns against what he calls "epicene pronouns," which I think are just fine, and he marks the following perfectly-good sentence incorrect: "Arcade Fire and about 20,000 of their fans turned the PNC Center into a raucous party Thursday night." Surely (he advises against using "surely") you've winced when some enlightened author uses *she* as a pronoun for a hypothetical hedge-fund manager or bomber pilot. Now that we have come to accept women as being more-or-less equal to men, there is an aching need in the language for a gender-neutral third-person personal pronoun, but still, Professor Yagoda admonishes, "They're not acceptable now."Very well, but then, in his list of wrong words (pg.62), he advises against using *affect* instead of *impact*! *Impact* as a verb! *Impact* as a synonym for *effect*! >Impact!< IMPACT! (Sloooowly I turned. . . . Step by step. . . . Inch by inch.. . . ) The worst neologism to beset the poor language during our lifetime, and he embraces it !!?! The scoundrel!Likewise, he says nothing about using "utilize" or "usage" in place of good-old simple "use." This is the worst murrain ever to have infested the language, and  Fowler's  says of it, "Those who write *usage* or *user* when they mean no more than *use* must be presumed to do so for one of two bad reasons: that they prefer either the longer word to the shorter or the unusual word to the common." Professor Yagoda is very stern about not using multiple exclamation points, but he ignores "utilize." And you gonna >obey< this guy? (Since reading the latest novel by Tom Wolfe, I have decided that using the more-than and less-than symbols are a more effective way of emphasizing a word than *asterisks* in ASCII. I make-up my own rules.)I began to think poorly of this book during the tedious introduction, when it became painfully obvious that Professor Yagoda writes like an English teacher. He makes-up all these rules then proceeds to violate each of them. He warns that ALL CAPS is never an acceptable means of showing emphasis, but on page 69 he shouts, DO NOT RELY ON SPELL-CHECK. I'm fond of beginning a sentence with the rhetorical use of "Perhaps", but on page 116 Professor Yagoda rules against "perhaps" in favor of "maybe," because "Lengthy is [not] desirable; short is good."O.k. (he doesn't discuss OK), so if the shorter word is better, why's he using "cogitation" instead of "thought" in the run-on sentence on page 135: "Usually, a writer uses a word twice because no alternative is self-evident or, sometimes, conceivable after what seems like a lengthy period of cogitation."Professor Yagoda instructs us not to employ . . . uh . . . tells us not to use clichés, but on page 84, he uses both "gets a clean bill of health" and "for all intents and purposes." I can forgive the first because it sounds quaint (just what is a "clean bill of health" anyway? Obamacare?), but "for all intents and purposes" is nothing more than stock filler. Kids are mocked for littering sentences with "like" or "y'know," but "for all intents and purposes" gets a clean bill of health, because it seems, like, sophisticated.He repeatedly cautions against using redundancies, but on page 128, he writes, " . . . different people will have different notions on where a particular phrase lies at a particular point in time." The ghastly redundancy "at this point in time" sprouted like a wart (in Washington, as does most damage to the language) during the Watergate hearings, and I thought it went out with H. R. Haldeman, but apparently it still sounds highly elegant to the ears of Professor Yagoda.Throughout the book, he speaks of the importance of having a good ear for what constitutes good writing, and this is true. It also illustrates why such cardinal rules as putting the comma to the left of the quotation marks and the semicolon to the right are, in reality, trivial and silly compared with the writer's ability to communicate or report in an unambiguous and entertaining manner.Alas, by about page ten it becomes obvious that Professor Yagoda has a tin ear. How else can you explain his correcting a perfectly good sentence with this result: "In a flurry we grabbed some plastic containers filled with sprouts and kimchi. The damages were $12.75.""The damages were . . ."? That's something my late father would think was clever. (He also was fond of saying, "Everything's copacetic.") On page 11 we find, "I have scrawled it many times: comma splices, like the dude in  The Big Lebowski , abide." (I added the link in case you are not familiar with >The Dude.<) What is the purpose of joining the two sentences with a colon, thus creating ambiguity as to what he scrawled?Despite these shortcomings, and despite that he doesn't discuss the more arcane details of possessives and other baffling aspects which make English the most miserable language in the galaxy, the book does contain some useful suggestions. The section about unnecessary commas was an eye opener, and I realized that I had been making that mistake as well as several others. One's writing can always be improved, and I give the book a tentative recommendation for that reason. But because of the fatal lack of an index, the book is of little help for the person who is stuck in mid-sentence and is reaching for a handy guide to provide a quick solution. For that I recommend  Woe Is I  by Patricia T. O'Conner. It's twice the book with twice the information.

First off, I'm not a journalist or an English professor. I'm just a guy who wants to improve my writing. Ben Yagoda's "How to Not Write Bad" seeks to help people do just that, being a short guide that covers the key points on how to write well. If this sounds dull, it's not; the author throws in hilarious writing samples from his students, and other examples of bad writing that make this book an educational but funny read (perhaps until the reader realizes he or she is guilty of some of these common errors).Mr. Yagoda covers many examples of bad-writing we're all guilty of, from the more basic:- "Don't use a long word when there's a shorter one that means the same thing."- "Avoid word repetition. Do not avoid it by means of 'elegant variation'--the use of a synonym for the express purpose of avoiding word repetition."- "Never use whomever."To the more advanced:- "The trick is, when there's no readily apparent way to avoid repetition, it often works to find a word referring to a broader or narrower category of the first one. So painting/work is okay (broader), as is painting/neo-expressionistic portraits (narrower). But paintings/canvases is elegant variation."- "Shark cage diving is a compound adjective--that is, a phrase made up of two or more words, that modifies a noun--and compound adjectives before a noun (experience) get hyphenated: 'my shark-cage-diving experience.'"Some questions you may have always had about writing, but never bothered to ask, are probably also covered: Should you capitalize after a colon? (Only if what follows is a complete sentence, like what I just did.) Do commas and periods go inside or outside of the closing quotation? (Inside if you're American, outside if you're British.) Can you use parentheses inside of parentheses? (Yes, although you need to use brackets [like this] instead.)In fact, the paragraph I just wrote is based on this tip from the book: "When you ask a question, answer it immediately." If not, "that question just lies there, unanswered, puzzling or bewildering the reader."The most important piece of advice on how to write better is one word: read. Before going into anything else, Mr. Yagoda dedicates the first of the three main sections to the importance of reading. "Trying to be a not-bad writer without having read your share of others' work," he writes, "is like trying to come up with a new theory in physics without having paid attention to the scientists that came before you, or writing a symphony without having listened to a lot of music." In other words, reading this book alone won't turn you into a professional writer overnight. You need to read, and that doesn't include text messages and status updates. He writes: "How much reading will do the trick? The writer Malcolm Gladwell has popularized the notion that, in order to become an outstanding practitioner in any discipline, you need to devote to it roughly 10,000 hours of practice. I'll accept that in terms of reading."So this book is hitting two birds with one stone: reading about writing. If your goal is to become a better writer (which should be everyone), you should definitely give this book a try.

If only I had read it years ago before embarrassing myself in print. It addresses questions from novices finding their footing and veterans refreshing their style. For a book whose purpose is to reprove the reader, the tone is delightfully light. I will read it again.

This book is basic compared with Ben Yagoda's "When You Catch an Adjective..." but it's a fun and refreshing read. For beginning writers, it offers important lessons without complex grammar explanation. For experienced writers, it has entertaining reminders of writing basics. (Confession: I am watching a football game as I write. Ben Yagoda would not approve.)

A very effective writing book for a beginner level. It literally teaches you how to not write bad. It doesn't teach you how to write so well. It teaches you how to look okay and not forget basics. If you keep making mistakes like punctuation, small grammar, then buy it and read it. It will make your writing fine.

This is an odd way to write an instruction book. Instead of telling what you should do, it describes what you should not do. There is a section on the elements of style that includes useful stuff about punctuation, words, and grammar. My favorite part deals with sentences. It gives you many handy rules to follow when you editing and revising sentences. This book will help you if you are trying to improve your writing skills.

I use this book in my freshman English Comp classes. Yagoda's style is sarcastic and humorous and he gets his points across without being dull and dry. The chapters are broken up with sub-headings, making it easy to work sections into my syllabus and getting students to focus on the skill of writing, without becoming overwhelmed with information.

Plus updating of some of the standard advice. Not a must read, but a good one to recommend to young writers.

Well presented with good examples throughout. Makes learning how to write better English a pleasure. I wish I had five more words to finish this review!

上手く書くのではなく、下手に書かないことを目指した本。著者のBen Yagodaはアメリカの大学生のライティングが下手すぎることを嘆き、「とりあえず"not-writing-badly"を目指せ、というかそれができれば十分」と言ってます（アメリカ人でそれならこっちはどうすればいいんだと言いたいところ）。彼は"not-writing-badly"を二段階に分けています。第一段階はみんながまず気をつけるようなこと：文法、スペル、word choiceなど。第二段階は忘れがちなパラグラフ全体のこと：パラグラフ全体のトーンや長さの統一性など。本書の売りは第二段階だと思います。第二段階の指摘は本書ならではのことが多く、とてもためになりました。また、文章が上手い人が書いているのでとても読みやすいし、皮肉の混じった書き方で面白いです。

A terrific book, not as well known as it should be. Highly recommended for writers learning their craft.

I improves my English writing for my thesis