Five writing "errors" you should be making

Face it: most web writing stinks. Mainly because of the countless mistakes writers make online.

But not all errors are created equal. These five (most of which were never mistakes to begin with) actually make your writing shine.

Conjunctions up front

"And" and "but" are great for starting sentences.

But people mistakenly assume they’re informal.

In fact, the famously fastidious Chicago Manual of Style insists that 10 percent of sentences should begin with them.

And for the web, you should ramp it up to 20 (or even 30) percent.

Prepositions in the rear

Our teachers hypnotized us into believing this phony rule.

But they had no right to.

Avoiding prepositions at the end of a sentence leads to clumsy, stilted constructions.

And that’s the kind of writing up with which web readers simply won’t put.

Sentence fragments

Short. Simple. And easy to digest. Feel free to use.

The singular "they"

Need a general pronoun for a single person?

Steer clear of the yawn-inducing "he/she," "one" or—perhaps worst of all—"individual."

Instead, stick with the more readable "they."

Every writer may have their own way of avoiding it, but credible writers have been using the singular "they" for centuries.

Fear of contractions

To sound professional, many people assume that they should not use contractions.

But all expert writers know that if you don’t, your words are clunkier than wooden shoes.

So unless you are aiming for emphasis, use contractions exclusively.

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