In his essay, “How to Say Nothing in 500 Words” Professor Paul Roberts gives many suggestions on how to be a better writer and hook readers into what you are saying. Paul Roberts starts with writing how most students begin their paper, wanting to put it off and dreading a 500 words minimum. As a result, the paper is having what everyone else has written, with no excellent detail and same content.
His first suggestion is “avoid the obvious content.” That means do not write about what everyone has heard before because the rest have already thought of that idea too. To avoid that, make a list of arguments that come to your mind and write the paper by making sure that you don’t use any of the material on this list. Something that most readers
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His third instruction is “slip out of abstraction.” The writer has to make sure that his essay is not full of generalities. Any abstract word should be accompanied by examples that are specific in helping the reader to visualize the point. Roberts fourth point is “avoid the use of obvious padding.” Avoid filling the text with unnecessary statements trying to meet a specific word count. He demonstrates his point about eliminating extra words in “Call a fool a fool.” When sentences can be written in few words, there is no need to turn it into a paragraph to make a word minimum that causes the paper to become less exciting to read. He adds another important point which is to “Beware of pat expressions” that includes commonly used phrases and clichés. According to Roberts, most of the writers use these expressions, but only good writers minimize their use of them. He also states that they represent a barrier between a writer and his thoughts. To make the reading more enjoyable, Roberts recommends using “colorful words.” These are words to grab the reader’s attention and keep them wanting to read more. Colorful words are words with a preexisting association with them, like the word “mother.” Many people find a pleasant connection with