Collins Improve Your Writing Skills

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Graham King. Collins Improve Your Writing Skills

Contents

Introduction

Into the jungle, with machete and pen

Don’t be a sloppy copycat!

To be a good writer you have to write tighter

Before you begin to write . . . THINK!

The Golden Bull vs the Golden Rhubarb

From Here To Obscurity

The Case of the Crippled Sentence

A serious case of effluxion

How axiomatic is your bus shelter?

Q and A can save the day

The long, long trail a-winding: Circumlocution

The Circumlocutionist’s Lexicon

An utterly unique added extra: Tautology

An A to Z of Tautology

Witter + Waffle = Gobbledegook

Witter Warning List

Smart talk, but tiresome: Jargon

The Job Ads Jargon Jungle

Multicultural muddle

Computerspeak and Psychobabble

The Jargonaut’s Lexicon

Saying it Nicely: Euphemism

Euphemism and Political Correctness

A word to the wise about Clichés. All things considered, avoid clichés like the plague

An A to Z of Clichés to Avoid like the Plague

What’s your cliché rating?

Circumambulate the Non-representational: Avoid the Abstract

Some Awful Abstracts

Overloading can sink your sentence

The no-no non sequitur

Avoiding the minefield of Muddle

Disaster at lunchtime

An ugly mess in the vestibule

Doorstep body horror

To visit, or not to visit?

Like as not

Might or may

Danglers and floaters

Measuring the murk with the FOG Index

How the Fog Index works

Punctuation needn’t be a pain: Stops, Commas and Other Marks

Units of Space: sentences and paragraphs

Capital Letters

Devices for Separating and Joining The Full Stop

The Comma

The Functions of the Comma

Using Commas with Adjectives

The Oxford, or Final Comma

Other Problem Comma Placements

Using Commas as Parenthesis

The Semicolon

Trouble with your Colon?

The Seductive Embrace of the Bracket

The Square Bracket

A Dash to the rescue!

Quotation Marks

Quoting direct speech

How to close quotations

Hassles with Hyphens

A Hotch-potch of Hyphens

Symbols of Meaning Questions and Exclamations

The Question Mark

The ‘Semi’-question

The Exclamation Mark

Catastrophes with Apostrophes

Possessive Apostrophes

Contraction Apostrophes

Punctuation Pot-pourri

The Three-dot Ellipsis

Asterisks

Bullets

The stroke

Italics, Bold and Underlining

The building blocks of good writing: Grammar without grief

Nouns are for naming things

Countable and Uncountable Nouns

Singular and Plural Nouns

Collective Nouns

You, I, me, them and other Pronouns

When using pronouns . .

The Business of Verbs

Regular and Irregular Verbs

Some Disorderly, Disobedient, Deviating Irregular Verbs!

Auxiliary Verbs

Transitive and Intransitive Verbs

Phrasal Verbs or Verb Phrases

Describing things: Adjectives and Adverbs

Adjectives

Kinds of Adjectives

The Expanding Adjective

Adverbs

How Adverbs work

Positioning your Adverbs

Tips on using Adverbs

Grammatical Glue

Determiners

Conjunctions

Prepositions, and where to put them

Problems with Prepositions

Writing elegant, expressive English: The elements of style

Remember the Basics

Build on Brevity

Change up a gear: Active and Passive

. . . and up a gear again

Add colour to your Word Palette

Metaphor

Simile

Hyperbole

Alliteration and Wordplay

Don’t come down with a crash!

To sum up . .

Finding out : a word about dictionaries

Searching for Synonyms: the Thesaurus

Communicate better with a well-written letter

Preparation and Planning

Relationships by post: Strictly Personal

Personal Letters

Love Letters

Marriage Proposals

Accepting a Marriage Proposal

Rejecting a Marriage Proposal

Dear John . . . Dear Joan . .

Congratulations on an Engagement/Marriage

Thanks for the Present

Saying Thanks

Saying Please

Congratulations

Apologies

Get Well

Condolences (intimate and informal)

Condolences (to a non-acquaintance)

Responding to Sympathy and Condolences

Commiseration

The Gloved Fist

Ticking off Granny

Writing to Children

Announcements and Invitations

Protecting your interests: Complaining with Effect

Fighting Environmental Pollution

Writing to the Council

Holiday Woes

Confirming Holiday Arrangements

Late or Non-Delivery

Buying a Lemon

Faulty Car Repairs and Servicing

Bad Pension and Financial Advice

Rebuking a Restaurant

Querying a Bank Statement

Defective Building Work

Disputing a Builder’s Bill

Commission Confusion in Real Estate

Querying Electricity, Gas, Water and Phone Bills

Terminating a Hire-Purchase Agreement

Direct Debits and Standing Orders

Cancelling a ‘Signed-at-Home’ Contract

Please Sirs, I can’t pay . .

Disputed Insurance Claim: the Last Resort

Claiming Uninsured Expenses from a Negligent Driver

Querying a Solicitor’s Bill

Threatening Legal Action

Avoiding Legal Action

Appealing Against a Parking Fine

Objecting to a Planning Permission Application

Writing to a Member of Parliament

Staying alive: Employer and Employee

Getting that Job – Some Preliminaries

Applying for an Advertised Job

Enquiring about Job Opportunities

Rejoining the Work Force

Confirming an Interview

Asking for a Salary Increase

Tendering Your Resignation

Asking for a Reference

Writing a Reference or Testimonial

Selling Yourself: Creating a persuasive CV

Getting it and keeping it: Money matters

Credit Refusal

Requesting Your Credit History

The Sales Letter

The Opening – and the Selling Concept

The Steak – and the Sizzle

The Close – and the Clincher

Putting it all Together

Deep down you want to be fitter, leaner, sharper, better . .

Writing in the New Millennium: Word Processing and e-mail

Index

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About the Author

WRITING GUIDES BY GRAHAM KING

Copyright

About the Publisher

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Cover

Title Page

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in the near future – soon

in the neighbourhood of/in the vicinity of – near/about

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