Venolia - Rewrite right!: your guide to perfectly polished prose

Mend your speech a little,

lest it mar your fortune.Shakespeare

Mend your writing, too.

Jan Venolia

I have rewrittenoften several timesevery word I have ever published.

My pencils outlast their erasers.

Vladimir Nabokov

As a writer or editor today, you have a lot more at your disposal than pencils and erasers.

Word-processing software simplifies writing and revising, from note-taking and first drafts to final copy.

The Internet is a reference library at your fingertips.

E-mail makes keeping in touch with colleagues, friends, and family a snap and eases the interaction among authors, editors, peer reviewers, project managers, and production staff.

These powerful tools help you do it, but a solid foundation in the principles of revising tells you what needs to be done.

Rewrite Right! is for people who must write at work or in school and for freelance writers struggling to make sales. Editing is improving something writtenmaking it easier to follow, snappier, more interesting. Knowing how to edit means knowing what good writing is in the first place. And good writing comes from knowing how to revise, how to tug on words and adjust them until they say what you want them to say. In other words, writing and editing are facets of the same subject: doing a good job of putting ideas into words.

Have advances in telecommunications reduced the need for good writing? Not at all. The medium may change, but the language still needs to be well crafted. People who used to step down the hall to brainstorm with a colleague now sit down at a keyboard and whip out a message on e-mail.

E-mail has many advantages. Its convenient, fast, cheap, and less intrusive than a phone call; it provides a paper trail and is easily distributed to a large number of people. It allows an increasing number of people to work from their homes.

But the very ease of e-mail can be a hazard. Many people have developed an e-mail style thats breezy and informal; they pay less attention to spelling and grammar than they would in a standard letter. Should they care about good writing? You bet! E-mail recipients shouldnt have to puzzle their way through a message riddled with misspelled or omitted words and confusing references. Dont let the informality of e-mail fool you into thinking sloppiness is okay. Spontaneity is fine; sloppiness can be dangerous in any communication.

Muddled instructions create confusion. Costly research is repeated because results are buried in an obscure, two-pound report. Boring writing is tossed aside unread. Slipshod writing breeds distrust, prompting readers to wonder if language is the writers only area of incompetence.

At the other end of the spectrum, good writing gets things done. Its crisp, clear style requires less of the readers time. Good writing lowers administrative expenses, lightens workloads, and suggests the writer is competent in other areas as well.

Yet when it comes to writing, many capable people falter. They may be experts at marketing or high-energy physics, but ask them to write it up, and they rely on worn-out expressions and stilted prose.

As a consulting editor, Ive learned where most people need help. My first two books, Write Right! and Better Letters, provide simple advice.

Rewrite Right! is for those who want more. It describes two levels of editing: (1) to improve style and content, and (2) to correct language.

Rewrite Right! includes a variety of reference materials: lists of accepted abbreviations, hackneyed expressions, common redundancies, and irregular plurals. It suggests ways to make a document look better and explores sophisticated tools available to todays writers and editors. A glossary provides definitions of unfamiliar terms.

I hope Rewrite Right! helps you learn not only to write and rewrite well, but to enjoy doing it.

Dont be afraid to seize whatever you have written and cut it to ribbons. It can always be restored to its original condition in the morning.