How to Improve Your Writing: 8 Tips

One of the most common homework that teachers tend to ask students to do is writing an essay. Most of the time, students are supposed to have a good writing skill in order to do well for their exam. University students need to obtain a good writing skill to complete their research assignment as well. However, writing a paragraph is already challenging for some people, needless to mention producing a piece of well-written essay. Below are some tips for you to learn how to improve your writing skill.

Tip#1:Do Brainstorming Your Ideas

First, before you start writing, you have to know what you want to write; therefore, it is important to do brainstorming. Brainstorming can help you prepare for your arguments, supporting sentences, examples so that you can organize every paragraph well. It is also useful for you to avoid repeating the same ideas while having limited time to complete your essay. You do not want to waste your time reorganizing your ideas because it can really stress you out. Plus, it is not a good idea to focus on your writing while thinking of what you want to write in the next paragraph. If something goes wrong, it is a disaster! Brainstorming not only helps you reduce these problems but also allow you to organize your ideas well because you think before you write.

Read more: How to brainstorm for your writing

Tip#2: Write with a good grammar and use punctuation properly

Second, you have to obtain a good grammatical skill, especially punctuation. Most of the time, you probably forget to check whether you use comma, period, question mark, semicolon, quotation mark or hyphen properly in your sentence. However, a paragraph/essay without the right punctuation does make your whole writing look awful regardless of how good your argument is. Punctuation is just as important as verb subject agreement, so remember to pay attention to it in order to improve your writing as well.

read more: how to use punctuation properly

Tip#3: know types of essay/paragraph you are writing

Third, you ought to know the types of the essay/paragraph you are writing. Different types of writing need different organizing and writing styles. For instance, you can write a comparative essay by comparing similarities of two items in one paragraph and their differences in another paragraph. Alternatively, you also can compare their common features and differences in the same paragraph. In addition, you may write three body paragraphs for your ideas to support your argument. By doing that, your readers can catch up your ideas easier. Thus, learning to organize your ideas in different types of writing is crucial.

Tip#4: Use Transition Words to improve your writing

Fourth, using transition words in your writing will help make your writing easier to read. Readers can easily spot your main ideas, contrasting ideas, examples faster and easier. You do not have to know many transition words to produce a good writing, but you need to learn the most common ones at first. Then, once you are familiar using them, you can learn to use a few more. Some transition words are used when you want to add information, whereas others are used for showing result or chronological order. Remember to learn to use them properly. After practicing using them for a while, you will build a habit of using them and then improve the quality of your writing.

Tips to Improve Your Writing — Use Transition Words

Tip#5: Make Your Essay Includes Introduction, Body and Conclusion

Fifth, make sure that your essay contain introduction, body and conclusion. Your introduction should not be too long and should not present information you want to say in the body paragraphs. It should be general and tell the reader what you want to write in the body paragraph. Usually, it is called thesis statement, a sentence that tell your readers what the body paragraphs are about. Your body paragraph should start with a topic sentence and follow by supporting sentences. Supporting sentences can be explanation, reasons, arguments, supporting ideas, storytelling or example. Then, You can sum up all your main ideas in the conclusion. In addition, be sure that every paragraph in your essay is not too long as they are less attractive to your readers.

Tip#6: Use Simple Words to Improve Your Writing

Sixth, using simple words will also improve your writing. A good piece of writing does not need a fancy words that your readers cannot understand. Using simple words not only helps your reader understand your message clearer but also allow them to skim through your writing faster and still get your main ideas. You want what your written can be understood, right?

Read more: Simple words you should use in your academic writing

Tip#7: Read more books to enhance your writing

Seventh, a good writer tend to be a good reader as well. Reading books allow you to develop more insights and build your knowledge, which are essential for you to improve your writing. Reading also helps you learn more vocabulary and enhance your linguistic ability. You can start from picking a book interesting to you. Remember to pay more attention on how the authors present their ideas, tell your stories, provide their arguments, use their wording and writing styles. If you have not found an interesting book yet, you may start from reading blogs, short articles on the internet. Make sure that you develop a reading habit for at least one or two hours everyday. Once you can do it, your writing skill will be significantly improved.

Read more: Tips to develop reading habits

Tip#8: Practice Writing Everyday to improve your writing

Eighth, you get to practice your writing everyday for significant improvement. There is no way to get a perfect essay, but you can get a better essay from time to time. Practicing your writing allows you to learn from your mistakes. If you are still studying, you can practice writing variety of topics: one piece everyday. Then, bring it to school and let your teacher check for your mistakes and learn from them. Alternatively, you can ask someone with good writing skills to read your essay and ask for feedback.