I don’t know much about writing. These are mostly notes for myself as I try to improve my writing practices.

Why writing

Writing is the best way to communicate ideas. It allows thoughts to be presented in their purest form, without all the noise that comes from sensory feedback.

It's also a great feedback loop. If you are not able to translate your ideas into text, it probably means they are not clear in the first place.

Write something down every day as practice, and get better at it.

Self rules

Here are a few things that I am trying to apply while writing.

Don’t use the word just

This assumes too much of the reader. It make things sound just easy, which might not be the case for the reader. I just find that it’s generally more helpful to state things as they are without the just weight added to it.

Avoid the term but

I noticed that that term is often used when the writer either doesn’t have good communication skills or her idea is not very well formed.

When trying to communicate ideas

Usually this term is being used with a simplistic black and white vision of a This term tends to be used in

Some times it’s possible to replace the term but with and

Avoid your / we

This supposes a personal relationship with the reader. Since I am not a good writer and write technical articles, I prefer to stick to describing the subject instead of mixing identities.

Eg:

Once you finished installing the package

Becomes:

Once the package has finished installing

Avoid “I think”

I think that “I think” is redundant. It has a flavour of appeal to authority and it’s better to rely on adding meat to arguments and points.

Tools that I use

A great little companion that I use every day. Grammarly lets me know when my text is too negative, which is especially useful on Twitter.

Grammarly

Grammarly is now free! But only on Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Microsoft Edge browsers. Please visit from one of these supported browsers. Or, if you would like to try Grammarly Premium, you may proceed below. Grammarly makes sure everything you type is easy to read, effective, and mistake-free.

app.grammarly.com

For long-form writing, this tool gives better feedback on full sentence structures:

Write like a native speaker

InstaText is a user-friendly writing and editing tool that helps you rewrite your text so that you are understood and perceived as a professional. InstaText improves styling and word choice, corrects grammatical errors and enriches your content to make it more readable and understandable. Write clearly and accurately, produce high quality and efficient sentences.

instatext.io