How to Write a Cover Letter

Never say anything in writing that you wouldn’t comfortably say in conversation. If you’re not a person who says “indeed” or “moreover,” or who calls someone an individual (“he’s a fine individual”), please don’t write it.

Remember that words are the only tools you’ve got. Learn to use them with originality and care.

Be it a history paper, a biology thesis, or even a long e-mail to a professor, approach your writing as if you are trying to create an experience for your reader.

Making The Reader feel something is central to good copywriting, which is why it helps to be sentimental as a writer, sensitive to life’s nuances, moved by tenderness and sadness and nostalgia. It helps to recognize traces of emotion—of pain and pleasure, gain and loss—in the mundane moments, the ordinary moments, the moments people take for grante

What makes the words so ponderous is that they don’t have any people in them; they only have concepts—“consideration,” “conclusion,” “capacity,” “tendency.” Nouns that denote concepts are the death of vigorous writing. Good writing is specific and concrete.

Good writing is often about letting go of fear and affectation. Affectation itself, beginning with the need to define some sorts of writing as “good” and other sorts as “bad,” is fearful behavior. Good writing is also about making good choices when it comes to picking the tools you plan to work with.