Edit ruthlessly-take out unnecessary words, especially adverbs and remember this magic formula: 2nd draft=1st draft-10%

Stephen King

1. Circle the prepositions (of, in, about, for, onto, into)

2. Draw a box around the "is" verb forms

3. Ask, "Where's the action?"

4. Change the "action" into a simple verb

5. Move the doer into the subject (Who's kicking whom)

6. Eliminate any unnecessary slow wind-ups

7. Eliminate any redundancies.

Use the Paramedic Method in the sentences below to practice making your sentences more concise. After you use the Paramedic Method on these sentences, check your results against the sentences at the bottom of this handout.

1. The point I wish to make is that the employees working at this company are in need of a much better manager of their money.

2. It is widely known that the engineers at Sandia Labs have become active participants in the Search and Rescue operations in most years.

3. After reviewing the results of your previous research, and in light of the relevant information found within the context of the study, there is ample evidence for making important, significant changes to our operating procedures.

Five Minute Version—asked to read, explain why important

2 Minute Version—asked to summarize

30 Second Version—what is it? Why is it interesting?

10 Second Version—what is it?

The thread can be a number of different things:

A wordA phraseAn imageA rhetorical tool (metaphor, talking in threes, etc.)

There's two types of favors, the big favor and the small favor .You can measure the size of the favor by the pause that a person takes after they ask you to" Do me a favor." Small favor - small pause. "Can you do me a favor, hand me that pencil " No pause at all. Big favors are, "Could you do me a favor, .." Eight seconds go by. "Yeah? What?" ". . . well " The longer it takes them to get to it, the bigger the pain it's going to be.

Humans are the only species that do favors. Animals don't do favors. A lizard doesn't go up to a cockroach and say, "Could you do me a favor and hold still, I'd like to eat you alive," That's a big favor even with no pause.

Jerry Seinfeld (1993)

Children, especially, need coherence to guide them to:

1.Retain new knowledge presented2.Continue along an argument3.Remember what happened previously in the piece

4.Give them satisfaction in reciting and re-reading the peice

Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood; and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago; and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days. –Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865)

But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me and I can’t stand it. I been there before. –Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885)

Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;Some shall be pardoned, and some punished;For never was a story of more woeThan this of Juliet and her Romeo."- William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

 32 Yea, acome unto Christ, and be bperfected in him, and cdeny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and dlove God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be eperfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.

  33 And again, if ye by the grace of God are perfect in Christ, and deny not his power, then are ye asanctified in Christ by the grace of God, through the shedding of the bblood of Christ, which is in the covenant of the Father unto the remission of your csins

, that ye become dholy, without spot.

 34 And now I bid unto all, farewell. I soon go to arest in the bparadise of God, until my cspirit and body shall again dreunite, and I am brought forth triumphant through the eair, to meet you before the fpleasing bar of the great gJehovah, the Eternal hJudge of both quick and dead. Amen.

You want high-protein, less fluff writing

Try to make connections that link ideas

End with a conclusion that focuses on a main point, gives a twist and/or involves emotion