Rules for Writing

I dunno how I got through a grad program in history without ever seeing Professor William B. Hesseltine's "Commandments" on Historical Writing, but god, are they good and smart, whether you're writing history or anything else - even blog posts!

One can here find a lengthened list of the commandments, by Horace Samuel Merrill of the History Department at the University of Maryland, but here are some samples:

1. Thou shalt not use the passive voice.
2. Thou shalt not use the present voice.
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5. Thou shalt not quote anything thou canst say better thyself.
6. Thou shalt not quote to carry thy story.
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12. Thou shalt not write the history of a wheat field regardless of how "naturally" it develops.
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15. Thou shalt not mention secondary sources or writers in the main body of thy text.
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18. Thou shalt not discuss thy methodology.
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23. Thou shalt not use the rhetorical question to avoid an intelligent transition.
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25.Thou shalt be neither a "no-er" nor a "not-er"--i.e., thou shalt avoid negations whenever possible.
26. Thou shalt never use THIS for THE, nor THE for A.

(Here is some background on the development and deployment of the commandments, including Hesseltine's original list.)