had read something like this in one free ebook by Ken Evoy You have given all those tips in one article.

I strongly agree with these three especially:

Begin sentences with conjunctions.
End sentences with prepositions.
Add occasional fragments.

I second what James said as well about always cringing “when someone implies that it’s okay to suck as a writer, and you can be crappy and be successful.”

Real writers know that that’s absolutely not what Dean is getting at. The point here is, you gotta know the rules to break the rules.

The hardest lessons for me to learn were to use shorter sentences and less bulky paragraphs. I still don’t know when to use the one-sentence paragraph appropriately. On the other hand, I love using sentence fragments. The power of a well-chosen part-sentence is undeniable. Most of the time, anyway.

Thanks for pulling all these great ideas together in one post.

~Jim

In some articles (not ads) I write in the first and second person. I don’t know if that is incorrect – but I like the effect it has.

I do this with self development articles. I like to say, “we” and “ourselves” sometimes so that the reader knows I’m including myself.

Other times, I say, “you” because it’s when I’m purposely speaking directly to the reader and it thus has more power.

But it doesn’t seem confusing to me, instead it seems effective and
logical. I wonder what an English teacher would say.

Bamboo, thanks for the catch. I think Mary will fix the web address for my blog. It’s http://www.directcreative.com/blog/

Mary, oooh. “Gormless.” Nice word. Is that too intellectual for advertising? Let’s see, “Why settle for the gormless Widget 2000 when you can have the Thingamajig 3000?” Hmm.

I think the best tips out of these are that you should write short paragraphs and start a paragraph with the conjunction. Long paragraphs just make the reader more tired. Separate your sentences so that your writing is easier to follow.