Theodore Rees Cheney - Getting the Words Right: 39 Ways to Improve Your Writing

GETTING THE

WORDS RIGHT

second edition

ways to improve
your writing

Theodore A. Rees Cheney

WRITER'S DIGEST BOOKS
Cincinnati, Ohio
www.writersdigest.com

Getting the Words Right, Second Edition: 39 ways to improve your writing. Copyright 2005 by Theodore A. Rees Cheney. Printed and bound in the United States of America. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Published by Writers Digest Books, an imprint of F+W Publications, 4700 East Galbraith Road, Cincinnati, Ohio, 45236. Second edition.

09 08 07 06 05 5 4 3 2 1

Distributed in Canada by Fraser Direct, 100 Armstrong Avenue, Georgetown, ON, Canada L7G 5S4, Tel: (905) 877-4411. Distributed in the U.K. and Europe by David & Charles, Brunel House, Newton Abbot, Devon, TQ12 4PU, England, Tel: (+44) 1626 323200, Fax: (+44) 1626 323319, Email: mail@davidandcharles.co.uk. Distributed in Australia by Capricorn Link, P.O. Box 704, S. Windsor NSW, 2756 Australia, Tel: (02) 4577-3555.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cheney, Theodore A. Rees (Theodore Albert Rees), 1928

Getting the words right / by Theodore A. Rees Cheney.-- 2nd ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 1-58297-358-X (pbk. : alk. paper)

eISBN: 978-1-59963-345-9

1. Editing. 2. English language--Rhetoric. I. Title.

PN162.C38 2005

808'.042--dc22 2005000595

Designer: Grace Ring
Editor: Amy Schell
Production Coordinator: Robin Richie

I want first to acknowledge the role played by my students during the past thirty years. I learned a great deal about writing as I tried to analyze why some of their papers worked and some didnt.

The writing of these graduate students of communication is generally so good that one editor commented: Most teachers would be pleased to have the students whose examples youve used to highlight problems. Because their writing was usually of high caliber, the occasional trouble spot stood out, enabling me to concentrate on a single problem without having to first clear up others.

As examples of the perils and pitfalls we all face as we try to get the words right, Ive used some student efforts, some writings from consulting clients, and some of my own attempts. Without my students and clients, this book would have been impossible to write. Thank you all.

There is an old adage: Everyone needs an editor. This book on editing was written by an editor and yet it benefited immeasurably by being edited by other editors. There are only two people who worked as hard on the first edition of this book as I did: Carol Cartaino, editor-in-chief, and Howard I. Wells III, editor. My prior experiences with editors at giant publishing houses made me wonder whether what I had read all my life about editors was all a myth. This fine, humane editorial team at Writers Digest Books seems a welcome throwback to the days when editing words and ideas was seen as a profession as well as a business. They and their editorial associates slaved over multiple drafts of this manuscript in a valiant effort to keep me from embarrassment in the marketplace.

I want to acknowledge publicly once again how much I owe my wife, Dorothy Bates Cheney. Her cheerful willingness to endure hundreds of lonely weekends and thousands of husbandless evenings has made it possible for me to write what I needed to write. Every writer should have such a resourceful, self-sufficient, and understanding helpmate.

Every writer should also have such a resourceful, self-sufficient, and understanding editor as Ms. Amy Schell, editor of this second edition.

DEDICATED TO E.B. WHITE.
HE TURNED MY LIFE AROUND.

Theodore A. Rees Cheney hasnt spent all his time behind a typewriter. At seventeen, he went to the Antarctic with Admiral Byrd. He later made excursions to other polar regions and earned degrees in geology and geography. His impressive credentials also include author of several published books, video scripts, and articles; Master of Arts in Communication; senior scientist at a think tank; and president of an aerial mapping firm. He has taught courses in creative problem-solving and conducted writing workshops at the graduate level. Formerly Acting Dean of the Graduate School of Corporate and Political Communication at Fairfield University in Connecticut, Professor Cheney also headed up the writing program at the university before retiring. He is now a freelance author and works as a writer for The Nova Alexander International Group, a public relations firm.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

T he title of this book, Getting the Words Right, was a direct theft on my part from an interview about revision that Ernest Hemingway gave to the late George Plimpton in his Paris Review.

I have always loved that response, so this book is about thirty-nine or more ways to revise your drafts until you get the words right. The single word revision expresses succinctly most of the activities involved in getting the damned words right: writing, rewriting, rereading, reviewing, rethinking, rearranging, repairing, restructuring, re-evaluating, editing, tightening, sharpening, smoothing, pruning, polishing, punching up, amending, emending, altering, eliminating, transposing, expanding, condensing, connecting, cohering, unifying, perfecting, transitioning.

Since it would be difficult to always repeat that litany, revision does it well enoughbecause of its etymological roots. Revision says it clearly, as you, the writer, must periodically re-look at what youve written. Then, as you see it anew, youll probably find at least something you can revise to make your piece more accurate, more concise, more helpful, more euphonious, more humorous, more serious, more in keeping with the times, more appropriate, more dramatic, more heart stopping, more memorable, moreor somehow betterthan the words that had originally arrived in your fevered brain to convey to the world the vision your mind had seen. This book, then, deals with finding the