You couldn’t possibly have a better writing teacher than William Zinsser. This veteran nonfiction writer began his career in 1946 at The New York Herald Tribune — which, I believe, puts him right about where you’re sitting now. He has since published 19 books on subjects ranging from travel to baseball to writing. (His “Writing on […]

In English writing, we value variations in sentence structure the way we value rhythm  and cadences in speech. If every sentence consists of subject, verb, predicate, in that order, the writing very quickly becomes  monotonous. So we might have a long sentence followed by a short, punchy one, or a simple declarative sentence before one […]

From a post-Oscar story in The Daily News: Anne Hathaway released a statement saying that she simply couldn’t stand to look like any other girl on the red carpet. . . . “And so I decided it was best for all involved to change my plans.”  Shouldn’t there be another that in there? Or is there one too many? It’s […]