The editorial staff sincerely and clearly believes this article indicates about fifty of the most effective and notable words which should be included in any clear-headed persuasive writer's vocabulary. Free-spirited and witty, Professor McDonald shares his research findings with compassion, vision, and integrity, to provide responsible writers with significant means to improve, perhaps, their abilities—claims this impressive author—to write more directly, to improve superficial good will, but, before all, to give writers the freedom to incorporate more useful ambiguity, up to acceptable limits, in their realistic persuasive prose. Unfortunately, this experienced writer, colleague and would-be friend of the author, admits failure because he couldn't, however clever, moral, mature, and sensitive, find a use for terrorist or James Council and second because he did not have available the Japan studies.

Perhaps with tongue in cheek, the author gives sound advice on how to avoid some of the pitfalls of style, punctuation, and grammar. He suggests that the principles he gives will result in clearer and simpler writing.

Without learning the more complicated systems which define good writing, one can still improve his prose a good deal. All he has to do is to avoid using particular words and phrases. The “dirty words” include vague terms, foreign words, technical words, literary allusions, wordy forms, unnecessary phrases, offensive words, illiterate errors, cliches, and awkward phrases. A long list is given.

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