•    Be lively and unpredictable. How much fun is it listening to someone drone on and on using words that only he understands with a monotonous tone and rhythm? It's about as much fun as reading an essay that drones on and on that uses words only the writer understands and has a monotonous tone and rhythm. Having a good personality and strong voice in writing requires using natural language, sensory details, action verbs, sentence variety, parallel structure, and varying sentence lengths.
•    Use figurative language. Remember all those lessons your teachers taught you about figurative language? You wondered what purpose they served. Using figurative language (metaphors, similes, analogies, personification) adds variety and personality to your writing. It allows you to explain the ordinary extraordinarily and the complex simply. Unlikely comparisons express originality and create reader interest. Avoid clichés.

•    Use humour appropriately. Humour appeals to the reader's intelligence, alleviates boredom, and reveals your human side. Note the difference between intelligent humour and insulting the reader's intelligence with long narrative jokes ending in a punch line. Intelligent humour consists of being playful, using puns, wit, irony, meiosis, and hyperbole.
•    Be sincere. Without genuineness your writing is superficial. Being sincere requires substance over style, taking a stand, and revealing your true self and your true thoughts. Connect with your reader. When revising, avoid the following symptoms of insincerity: overuse of the passive voice, the excessive use of verbs as nouns (recommendation, communication, etc), and unnecessary complex sentences.