Why Homeschool: Rules of Writing

Monday, October 23, 2006

Rules of Writing

My mother-in-law forwarded this to me with a little note saying that "it might help children remember some writing rules."

So here it is, a fun way to teach grammar and punctuation rules.

"Rules of Writing"

- Verbs HAS to agree with their subjects.

- Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.

- And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.

- It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.

- Avoid cliches like the plague.

- Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.

- Be more or less specific.

- Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary.

- Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.

- No sentence fragments.

- Contractions aren't necessary and shouldn't be used.

- Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.

- Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.

- One should NEVER generalize.

- Comparisons are as bad as cliches.

- Don't use no double negatives.

- Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.

- One-word sentences? Eliminate.

- Use the apostrophe in it's proper place and omit it when its not needed.

- Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."

- If you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times: Resist hyperbole; not one writer in a million can use it correctly.

- Puns are for children, not groan readers.

- Who needs rhetorical questions?

- Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.

And finally...

- Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.