Write Like You Talk – A Guest Post By Phillip T Stephens

When I taught college writing, I told students to write like they talk.

I didn’t mean write like you really talk.

If we taped and transcribed our conversations, we’d quit reading after the first page. In everyday conversation we use filler language to give our brains precious seconds to catch up with our words, we backtrack to fill in details we previously forgot.

From time to time we expel word farts.

For example:

“Like, Carol and I were driving, you know what I mean? When this badass cop, I...