Write As if You Were Talking With Your Best Friend

Charles C.

I am an expert in-person and online writing tutor who has tutored for Wyzant.com since 2014. I also show students how to write cursive letters.  

Natalie, a college student in California, told me, “The paper you helped me write on the audio-book boom raised my grade from C minus to a B. My professor liked my paper and said, ‘Nice improvement on your APA in-text citations and references. Nice job paraphrasing! Only a 13% similarity report, down from 30%. Nice job answering the prompts. Thoughtful, well-rounded responses to the questions.’ Thanks, Charles!”

My first master’s degree is in political science, my second master's degree is in creative writing. I also completed two-thirds of a Ph.D, taught political science full-time at Southwest Early College High School and at South Texas College, both in Texas. At Borough of Manhattan Community College, I taught Composition 101. In 2022, I wrote, edited, and published “Speak and Write Concisely”. In 2024, I expanded it and to highlight the new advances in computer-assisted writing apps, specially the speech-to-text apps that type what you say to them so you can use more energy to articulate and compose your paper, I updated my book's title to “Write Talking”. The latest edition will be out in one week, I renamed it "Write Perfectly". Amazon.com sells my books.

Writing Tip 1
Look at each word in a sentence and ask yourself: Does that word help that sentence work? If it doesn’t help it work—delete it.
Look for and delete any obvious words.
Identify each word or phrase you repeated. If you don’t want to repeat it, delete it.

Writing Tip 2
When you’re writing and are not ready to choose which word or phrase to use, between every two items, insert a semicolon, as in [ abundant; ample; copious, many ].
When you’re ready to choose the best word or phrase, strike through (strike through) the ones you will not use, and delete them, as in [ abundant; ample; copious, many ].