6. A Writer Should Develop a Respect for Words

1. A kind of writing called journalese that contains a mixture of cheap words, made-up words, and clichés.
2. Writer must fight these phrases.
3. A writer cannot be recognized as a writer unless he develops a respect for words and a curiosity about their shades of meaning.
4. "Journalese is a quilt of instant words patched together out of other parts of speech." For example, adjectives are used as nouns such as "greats", "notables".  The "host" (noun) is used as verb ("to host"). Nouns are chopped off to form verbs ("enthuse", "emote") or they are padded to form verbs ("beef up," "put teeth into").
5. To avoid such writing is to care deeply about words.
6. "The race in writing is not to the swift but to the original."
7. "Writing is learned by imitation."
8. Read the men and women who are/were doing the kind of writing you want to do and try to figure out how they did it. "But cultivate the best models. Don't assume that because an article is in a newspaper or a magazine it must be good."
9. "Also get in the habit of using dictionaries." such as Webster's New World Dictionary, Second College Edition. "If you have any doubt of what a word means, look it up. Learn its etymology and notice what curious branches its original root has put forth. See if it has any meanings you didn't know it had. Master the small gradations between words that seem to be synonyms."
10. "Thesaurus is to the writer what a rhyming dictionary is to the song writer." Use Roget's Thesaurus. It saves the time.
11. "Also bear in mind, when you're choosing words and stringing them together, how they sound." This is because readers enjoy both the arrangement and the effort to entertain them.
12. Every writer should read The Elements of Style (written by E. B. White) once a year.
13. "Good writers of prose must be part poet, always listening to what they write."
14. "Such considerations of sound and rhythm should be woven through everything you write. Read everything aloud before letting it go out into the world. You'll begin to hear where the trouble lies."
15. "An occasional short sentence can carry a tremendous punch. It stays in the reader's ear."
16. "Remember that words are the only tools you've got. Learn to use them with originality and care."

These are my summary notes on 'Words' from a book "On Writing Well" written by William Zinsser.