The following are my opinion concerning common phenomena in writing.  Corrections/suggestions should be sent _PRIVATELY_ to dot_warner17@my-dejanews.com, and flames will be ignored.

1) Ending a sentence with a preposition--Nonstandard, informal English, but hardly incorrect any more.  These days, very few people say "With whom are you going?" when "Who are you going with?" sounds much more natural.

2) Splitting infinitives--Try to avoid this as much as possible unless rewording it makes the sentence awkward.
Example: "Try not to mess up, okay?" instead of "Try to not mess up, okay?"

3) There is/are/was etc.--Grammatically correct, but terribly boring and dry.  Reword your sentence with more active verbs.
Example: "Cars clogged the highway." Instead of "There were many cars on the highway."

4) Passive voice--Once again grammatically correct but not very interesting.  However, passive voice is usually encouraged in scientific texts, where the emphasis is on the thing being discussed and not the person discussing it.  Or, if you're putting more emphasis on the thing that the action falls on, then go ahead and use passive voice.
Example: "Ted was stung by a bee!" (Emphasis is on Ted, not the bee.)

5) Slang--Usually not used unless in dialogue.  Even then, don't be too excessive.

6) Contractions--Grammatically correct, but informal and frowned upon in essays.  As for narratives, use your own judgement depending on the tone of the story. 

7) Ellipses as pauses in dialogue--Non-standard English, but generally accepted due to the popularity of manga.  Use descriptions in narration where you can instead of putting in ellipses.

8) Use of foreign language--If it's not commonly known (exp.: data, buffet, etc.), use sparsely, and provide a phrase list.

9) Sentence fragments and run-ons--While generally a no-no, these can be effective in establishing tone or style.  Sentence fragments tend to lead to a short, concise, and forward-marching tone, while run-ons tend to lead to long, slow, and winding passages.  Use your personal discretion.

10) Starting sentences with "and" or "but"--Grammatically correct, despite what your teacher may have told you.  And, starting sentences with "and" or "but" is generally preferable over creating overly long sentences.

11) Depicting thought/emphasis--Thought/emphasis can be depicted as italicized, boldfaced, or underlined text.  In ASCII, thoughts may be enclosed in 'single quotes', "double quotes", or any assortment of symbols, as long as they're clearly defined.  Words with heavy emphasis may be rendered in ALL CAPS; however, use all caps sparingly, as that is the text equivalent of shouting.  Of course, it is perfectly acceptable to use no form of embellishment at all, although thoughts generally should be identified as such.

12) Dialogue tags--Excessive use is generally discouraged.  Use only enough tags to distinguish between speakers, and let the characters' words tell the reader of the tone if possible.  Be especially careful when writing sarcasm.

13) Cliches--Generally should be avoided.  Be more original.

14) Commas--Commas are used to separate:
--Items in a list (the habit of dropping the comma before the last item in the list is nonstandard English and gives the impression that the last and the second-to-last items in the list are somehow grouped together)
--two independent clauses (although this may be omitted if the entire sentence is short enough; or, if the sentence is longer, a semicolon would be the better punctuation mark)
--Interjectors (and, but, however, frankly, or, etc.  This also may be omitted in certain cases)
--Direct address ("Yo, what's up?" "Hi, Bob, nice to see you!" "Stop, thief!" These commas generally shouldn't be omitted.)
--Modifying phrases (exp.: Running down the hall, the boy tripped and fell.)

(I'll readily admit, though, I don't always follow my own advice, especially not with #8. ^^;)

Again, PRIVATE replies only, please.
---
-"Dot"
Dot-Chan on #fanfic at bachman.newberry.edu (FFIRC Chatroom)
Proud member of CAPOW

http://www.fortunecity.com/westwood/italian/70
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--Writer of Unnecessarily Long Author's Notes and Bad Spamfics. ^^;
--Bane of the FFML since 1998. ^_^
--Coming soon to your local inbox: Dragon Ball stories 
with -gasp- plot! ^_^



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