Even if you are not a professional writer you probably already heard about writing prompts. They represent a very effective tool for any writing project, so it’s a good idea to know how to use them. What Is A Writing…

In its election manifesto, one of the major political parties in the UK recently promised to provide “virtually every household in the country a broadband service of at least 2 megabytes per second by 2012.” The “2 megabytes per second”…

A great deal of jargon is used when talking about computers, and it’s surprising how often these terms are used incorrectly. Even published, successful novels sometimes do so. The following list provides an explanation of some of the more common…

Our previous post looked at the basics of poetry rhythm and metre (or, in the US, meter). This post goes into further detail on the common rhythms employed by poets, and it covers some of the terminology used to describe…

If you submit manuscripts to publishers or agents, you’ve probably come across the demand that you use “standard manuscript format” (or “SMF”) for your submissions. However, it isn’t always spelled out what this actually means. Generally speaking, the term indicates…

Is “foment” the same as “ferment”? People stirring up discord are often described as “fomenting trouble”. If you search for the phrase on the Internet you’ll find, for instance, Indian agents fomenting trouble in Canada and the Russian Kremlin fomenting…

Previous poetry writing tips have looked at rhyme and alliteration. Another fundamental aspect of poetic language is its rhythm. This post is the first of two that will look at this topic and the related notion of metre (or, if…

Be careful with ingenious and ingenuous. Sometimes a single letter can make a great deal of difference to the meaning of a word. Take, for example, the two words ingenious and ingenuous. Ingenious means clever, original or inventive. It derives…

If you can overwhelm and underwhelm, can you also “whelm”? Both overwhelm and underwhelm are common enough words, but they appear to imply the existence of a root word “whelm”. Does such a word exist and, if so, what does…

Be careful with hyper- and hypo-. These two prefixes are easily confused as they sound so similar but they have, in fact, more-or-less opposite meanings. Hyper- means over, excessive, more than normal, as in such words as hyperbole (extravagant and…

Is “math” or “maths” the correct word to use as the shortened or colloquial form of the word mathematics? The answer is that it depends on where you are. To North American speakers of English, the word to use is…

A steep climb up a mountain is sometimes described as “vertiginous”, as in the following quotation from a description of a hike up the Inca Trail: You have time to make the vertiginous climb to its summit for dramatic views…

What do a sheep, a cannon and an aircraft have in common? The answer is that they all – usually – use the same word whether they are in the singular or the plural. If you have one sheep and…

It’s quite common for people to use the phrase “one fowl swoop” (or even “one foul swoop”) when they want to convey the idea of an event taking place all at once and very suddenly. But why do we say…

A couple of previous Daily Writing Tips posts looked at when to use rhyme in poetry and also at the various types of rhyme available to the poet. Rhyme, however, is only one of the techniques employed in poetry to…

Don’t mix up censor, censure, sensor and censer.  These four words sound very similar when spoken, making them easy to mix up. Censor and censure, particularly, are often muddled as they are related words coming from the same…

It’s quite common to read of people – particularly sportsmen and performers – promising to “give 110%” effort. England cricketer Andrew Flintoff, for example, once promised to give “110% in every game” he played. Of course, to do so would…

If you use Twitter, you’re probably already familiar with the idea of hashtags. These are simply a way of categorizing particular tweets by including within them a keyword prefixed with the hash or “pound” (#) symbol. So, for example, tweets…

The Twitter microblogging/social networking site is an invaluable resource for writers. It can, for example, provide a stream of links to useful web pages or it can enable writers to keep in touch with editors, publishers or other writers.  You…

The poet who wishes to write a rhyming poem has several different sorts of rhyme from which to choose. Some are strong, some more subtle, and all can be employed as the poet sees fit. The following are some of…

Not all poetry rhymes. It’s common to hear readers criticize poems that don’t rhyme, suggesting, perhaps, that the poets concerned were insufficiently skilled. But a great deal of poetry in the English language doesn’t employ rhyme. Blank verse, for example…

If you’re a fiction writer, you’ll be aware of the need to grab a reader’s attention as early as possible; to hook them, preferably, on your very first page. One key technique for doing this is to start your story…

To keep your writing as clear and concise as possible, you should generally try to remove unnecessary words. Sometimes duplication is fine – for artistic effect, for example – but as a general rule, it’s best to say things in…

The English language is constantly evolving. The meanings of words drift or even change completely. Sometimes words stop being used altogether and they die out. But at the same time new words are constantly being added.  These new words –…

If something is “bimonthly”, does it occur twice a month or once every two months? In fact, just to demonstrate how slippery the English language can sometimes be, the correct answer would be “either”. The Oxford English Dictionary definition is…

Getting your work published onto Amazon’s Kindle eReader is really very easy.  Perhaps you’re a writer interested in self-publishing some of your work. Or you might simply want to learn more about the ePublishing revolution and how to get involved.…

This is a common source of disagreement. Both “orient” and “orientate” are verbs meaning to align or position yourself; to work out where you are within a particular situation or environment. The origin of both words is the same :…

It’s tempting to think that dissect and bisect mean the same thing : to cut something in two. After all, the bi- and di- prefixes both convey the meaning of “two” or “twice”. So we have bicycle (with two wheels)…

Poetry is an area of writing that has a language all of its own, as contributors to the recent poetry competition will be aware. The following are some of the terms specific to the writing of poetry : alliteration A…

In the recent economic troubles, we’ve grown used to hearing about millions, billions and even trillions of dollars, pounds, euros etc. It’s worth noting, however, that these words do not have a universally-agreed meaning. What one person means by billion…

Language can be a slippery beast, with the meanings of words changing over time. This can be a great source of confusion, especially if a word ends up with two distinct, even contradictory meanings. One example of this occurs with…