5. Emphasize the positive

Positive sentences are inviting and encourage people to read on. Negative sentences can seem bossy or hostile. They can cause your readers to mistrust your words and often discourage people from reading on.

If you fail to replace your divots the course marshall will not admit you to the putting green.

6. Avoid double negatives

Instead of:

a) He was not absent.   a)

b) The procedure will not be ineffective.   b)

c) It was never illegitimate.   c)

7. Avoid unnecessary preambles

Unnecessary preambles can weaken or hide the point they introduce.

Here is a list of some unnecessary preambles:

• It is important to add that...
• It may be recalled that...
• In this regard it is significant that...

It is interesting to note that the PM said that, with respect to literacy programming, at this point in time, his government has no plans for augmentation of this issue.