100 Ways to Improve Your Writing

**100 Ways to Improve Your Writing** by *Gary Provost* is from 1985 and has aged remarkably well. It's a set of rules, short and to the point. Some advice is dated and not relevant any longer – a couple of hints on how to acquire information and in which format to submit your work, mostly. Apart from that, the book talks about how to prepare for writing, how to structure texts, and goes down to details of grammar and punctuation. All of these things are well-structured, to the point, and come with plenty of examples and as much entertaining writing as you can fit in a paragraph or two per topic. I enjoyed the short form and the sensible advice – some of which is very common, but especially the sections on editing contained new show more advice for me. show less

I'm a firm believer that the best way to improve one's writing is to read a lot and write a lot (thank you On Writing, where I first heard this). This simple act of immersion, AKA doing the work, is often undervalued and frequently ignored in favor of tricks and shortcuts. There is no secret knowledge that writers employ. Nevertheless, Gary Provost's 100 Ways to Improve Your Writing is a nice refresher for focusing one's efforts and staying on task.

The sections that spoke to me personally were "Listen to What You Write," "Write About People," and "Prefer Good Writing to Good Grammar."

Simple. Practical. Elegant.

I read this book for the first time and now it will make it to my bookshelf. I am sure I will thumb through it often.

A good resource book, a bit on the basic side.

I found this book useful. I bought it from amazon.com