Hi Gurus!

I'm Elissa, a new intern at LifeTips. I have been doing a lot of tip editing since I got here, and was asked to post about some tips for improving your writing skills--from an editor's perspective. Here are some of the things I thought up. Most of them are small, and some are even things I keep having to remind myself about!

• Remember the style of writing we use. At LifeTips, we use AP style writing. Its a pretty common writing style, but it does have several specifics. Most writers I have edited so far have done really well with this, but a few things to keep in mind are: only one space after the end of a sentence (this is something I have to keep telling myself to do), punctuation goes inside quotation marks when it falls at the end of a sentence or next to a comma, and its is the possessive while it's is the contraction.
• Be as concise as possible. Read your sentences back to yourself, see if they flow easily. If not, cut out whatever is extra. If you have a sentence that reads The company makes a product for which they are known throughout the world, it can easily be shortened and tightened to say The company's product is world reknown. Take out extraneous thats, for whichs, hithertos, henceforthwiths, and prepositional phrases, and generally just try to keep it simple.
  
• Take into consideratioin the company you are writing for. If they are solely an online company, don't write tips about going into stores. Just take a moment after writing a tip to make sure what you've written applies directly to the client as well as whatever they wanted you to write about.
• Avoid passive voice. Seriously. It is now the plague--thats how much you want to avoid it. Instead of they have been having just write they are having, instead of it has been becoming write it became. For one, your writing is more concise; secondly, it just sounds so much better when active voice is used. The writing sounds better, the product sounds better, and the silence from the clients sounds better.
• Don't stylize your formatting unless absolutely necessary. Again, keep it simple. Paragraphs are best, even if you do need to list things. Having a random bulletted list of only 1-3 items isn't needed. If, like this list, there are several items, and each requires explanation, OK, that can work. But do try to keep them to a minimum.
  

That's about it for now. Trust me, these little things make huge differences. And, the less editing we have to do, the more you get paid!

Happy writing! 

Elissa