Rural Heritage Business Office

Pertinent Quotes

Readers want to know, "Why are you telling me this?" Any writer better have a compelling answer.

Amy Hempel, author & instructor
The Week, June 2006

What an editor seeks in an article, beyond the sensible arrangement of facts and ideas, is passage into the discoverable strangeness of the world: to experience what we might call literary lift-off. Your basic deskbound word-and-picture jockey doesn't get out that much, except through the article he has to read over and over again, and so he values the power of writing at least as much as the reader, who reads the article only once, and with no obligation to even do that.

Scott Mowbray, editor
Popular Science (June 2003)

  • Make your message clear
  • Don't use too many adjectives
  • Say exactly what you want to say
  • Speak to your audience
  • Write clear sentences
  • Use fairly short sentences
  • Vary the sentence structure
  • Use words that evoke visual images
  • Keep your language natural
  • Leave out personal opinions [unless you are writing a guest editorial]
  • For interest, add a quote [better yet, start off with a quote]
  • When you finish, go back and cut needless words
  • Double check spelling and grammar

Lynda Utterback, editor
The National Dipper (July/August 2003)

An excessive use of exclamation marks is a certain indication of an unpractised writer or of one who wants to add a spurious dash of sensation to something unsensational.

H.W. Fowler, author
The King's English (Oxford Univeristy Press, 1906)

Proper punctuation is both the sign and the cause of clear thinking.

Lynne Truss, author
Eats, Shoots & Leaves (Gotham Books, 2003)

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16 August 2006