Improving Your Writing Skills

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Not a good writer? You can learn how to write well. Why is writing important? Colleges and universities are looking for a community of scholarly students. You will be required to write many papers and reports during your studies. I maintain that those students who learn to write well, get better grades. To succeed in a career, you need to communicate well. Think of it – even emails, takes a knowledge of grammar and language usage. (Remember to always reread an email for errors before you send it.) Getting into college depends on your writing ability. Required tests, such as the SATs and ACT, now require that you write an essay (http://satdude.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/sat-multiple-choice-writing-red-flags-part-1/). And of course, as I have pointed out in past blogs, you need these skills to write your college application essays – and there are a lot of them. What are the elements of a successful essay?
1. A great lead sentence and paragraph that really catches the readers attention. Think exciting and intriguing.
2. Transitions between ideas and paragraphs.
3. Organization – are the paragraphs in the correct order?
4. Use of quotes – never in the first or last sentence but as evidence in the body of the essay.
5. A conclusion that summarizes your ideas and looks at the bigger picture – what did you learn or what is the greater meaning from your experience.
6. Can you see it, feel it, smell it, and touch it?
7. Have you taken a unique approach to a topic, issue, or experience?

Keep in mind that writing well takes practice, so keep at it!

21 thoughts on “Improving Your Writing Skills”

  2. Useful tips and rednimers for us bloggers especially when working on a featured post. Thank you for sharing. I suddenly miss the crisp feel of Reader’s Digest. It’s been years since I read/held one.

  3. Just came aorcss this, Steve, and am really happy about it. I’ve felt in a bit of a writing slump, hemmed in by my academic job and very unhappy about it. I’ve had a book brewing for a few years that I need to get out, and the sad fact is that, after the teaching, helping students try to get their theses out is so draining of my own ability to write.There’s so many bits of advice here that rang like gospel for me that I’m going to have to come back to this post at regular intervals. I love the idea of a writing computer and am looking for a whole slew of software that your contributors recommend (including the program that immobilizes your internet connection for defined periods!). I wrote my first book in cafes in Rhode Island specifically because I had no wireless at the time, no one knew me in RI, and students and others couldn’t find me there, unlike my office. And it was embarrassing to sit there in a public place with a laptop and not do some sort of typing.But I’m also hearing the advice I give my students when they complain that their theses are not writing themselves: put your fingers on the keyboard. Just put them there and don’t move your fingers away or do something else or decide that some minor task has to be done first. And keep them there when things don’t immediately happen. Eventually, all the stuff you have stored and mulled will start to come out. So you write the parts that want to be written first and leave the hard bits the hard bits may never need to be written.There is greatness and boldness in just beginning. But perhaps the hardest part is to stay with it when the beginning isn’t smooth or easy.Muito obrigado for the post, which I’ll be back to again.

  7. I recently came across your blog and also have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I really do not know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I could keep visiting this blog very often.

  9. Brilliant article! Improving Your Writing Skills | The Academic Support Link seriously tends to make my day a little bit brighter 😀 Continue on with the exceptional posts! Cheers, Annika Bable

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