Review writing checklist.

There is a lot of unnecessary passive voice in this document. This indicates to me that the writing checklist may not have been reviewed. This issue can be closed when each item in the writing checklist has been addressed. Please pay special attention to those issues which are bolded below.

[ ] Run a spell checker.
[ ] The Oxford comma appears in ("lions, tigers, and bears.")
[ ] Do not use the word "where" unless referring to a location (try "such that" or "in which").
[ ] Articles such as "a" "the" "some" "any" and "each" appear where necessary.
[ ] All subjects match the plurality of their verbs ( no: "Apples is tasty" yes: "Apples are tasty")
[ ] Avoid run-on sentences.
[ ] clunky nouns -> spunky verbs (progression, expression --> progress, express)
[ ] reduce vague words (important, methodologic)
[ ] reduce acronyms / jargon
[ ] get rid of unnecessary prepositional phrases -- author clearing throat (It can be shown that)
[ ] get rid of extraneous adverbs (very, really, quite, basically, generally)
[ ] get rid of there are / there is
[ ] turn negatives to positives (she was not often right -> she was usually wrong)
[ ] get rid of extraneous prepositions (the meeting happened on monday -> the meeting happened monday) (they agreed that it was true -> they agreed it was true)
[ ] get rid of passive voice (is/was/are/were/be/been/am + past tense verb), replace with active voice
[ ] use strong verbs (use sparingly: is, are, was, were, be, been, am)
[ ] avoid turning verbs into nouns ("obtain estimates of" -> "estimates"; "provides a description of" -> "describes")
[ ] don't bury the verb (keep the predicate close to the subject at the beginning of the sentence)
[ ] data is plural (the data are critical)
[ ] compare to (point out similarities between different things) vs. compared with (point out differences between similar things)
[ ] punctuation helps you to vary your sentence structure
[ ] Power to separate in increasing power: comma, colon, dash, parentheses, semicolon, period
[ ] In increasing order of formality: dash, parentheses, all of the others. Don't overdo it with the dash and parentheses
[ ] semicolon: connects two independent clauses. OR used to separate when the items in the list contain internal punctuation.
[ ] use a colon to introduce a list, quote, explanation, conclusion, or amplification
[ ] if there's a list in a sentence, it shouldn't come before the colon
[ ] use a dash to insert something in the middle of the sentence. Don't overuse it.

arfc / 2019-ddca-journal-article

Review writing checklist. #6