Roberts How To Say Nothing In Five Hundred Words Summary
819 Words4 Pages
“How to say nothing in Five Hundred Words” by Paul McHenry Roberts is an article that offers insights and guidelines to writers on how to avoid writing poor, drab papers and develop their work into a successfully outstanding college level essay.
The first point raised by Paul McHenry Roberts is that the writer avoid writing “the obvious content”. He believes that writers should stray away from those first points that pops into your head when writing a paper because if you are thinking about it so are most of your fellow classmates. Roberts recommends that before writing a paper, writers should sum up and remove the stale and predictable points before going on to your own.
Secondly professor Roberts suggest writers should take the path less travelled and choose sides that the readers would not expect because it not only makes it interesting but that sometimes the papers that seem the most difficult are the easiest to write.
Thirdly, Professor Roberts proposes that the writer should…show more content… Thus, phrases such as; “all things being equal, over my dead body, the time of his life, in the twinkling of an eye” are all considered to be “pat expressions.” He believes that “pat expressions” shows lack of originality and clichés. He believes that there is no sure way to avoid them altogether, but the writer should really limit their use as it shows the difference between the good writers and the writers filled with mediocrity.
To make your paper more interesting, Professor Roberts recommends the use of “colorful words”. Colorful words according to Professor Roberts are words that are calculatedly used to produce a specific picture or induce an exact emotion. They are dressy, loud and precise. An example of such words would be instead of saying “he sat in his chair” the writer would say “he lounged, sprawled, coiled” hence producing a more detailed and vivid