Tips That Will Improve Your Writing

I sincerely love to write … and I love to learn new tips to improve my writing. Unfortunately, writing tips are hard to find now that I'm out of school. Hearing from different teachers, with very different writing styles, and even editing the work of my friends' was all excruciatingly helpful in developing my own voice. In fact, way back when I remember loving that Microsoft Word would "grade" my work based on how big the words were that I used in text and how long my sentences were. (In other words, using fillers 'a', 'the', 'this', 'that' along with short sentences resulted in a lower 'grade'. It was definitely incentive for me to learn new, bigger words and to write more concise, detailed sentences in an effort to get my point across.

Now that I've had an Apple for the past 4 or so years, I'm not even sure if Microsoft Word still has the grading process that helped me so long ago. In fact, I'm constantly googling and seeking new ways to learn better writing skills, but I rarely find anything that is truly helpful. As such, I have decided to share my top 10 writing hints with you today. If you love to write or even if you hate to write, I am hopeful that these tips will not only help you to become a better writer but also improve your communication skills, because what is writing without communication?

Photo credit: Con Skeptical

1. More for writing essays than blog posts (although it can be used for both), my 10th grade teacher always recommended we write essays in the style of an hourglass. You begin with something all-encompassing. For example, "Writing is a fantastic form of communication". :-P It's this wide topic that you can go almost anywhere with. Then, as you continue with your first paragraph, condense the topic a bit. "Learning to write and communicate well, however, can be a bit time consuming and difficult without the proper knowledge and experience." From this point forward, you would keep condensing your topic and "funneling" it for 4-5 sentences (the proper length of a first paragraph). "Teachers often provide one with great experience and practice writing." Condense, condense, condense. Finally we get to the topic of the essay (or this blogpost): "The following tips will improve writing making communication more efficient." Obviously, if you were writing it (or I was writing it as an actual essay), it would be far better written and more than 10 minutes would have been spent contemplating exactly what was trying to be said.

After you get past the first paragraph, which is usually the most difficult, you would discuss your ten tips (or points or whatever you were trying to say) in however many paragraphs you needed to say it including facts drawn from reliable resources before working your way to a conclusion. When concluding, the easiest way to begin to form a conclusion is exactly the opposite of the introduction. Begin your paragraph with your very narrowed topic; rewrite the last sentence of your first paragraph encompassing any major points that you may have discussed in your essay that perhaps were not necessarily clear when you began your essay. i.e. "Communication becomes much more efficient when one incorporates skills obtained from these tips into his/her writing." Then, expand. How does writing and communication relate to the world at large? Why should your reader care? Is there anything specifically that they need to gain from this piece? Tell them. "Without efficient writing and communication, one will never be able to make a difference the world." Blah, blah, blah. Obviously I'm insinuating in a very awkward way that "making a difference in the world" is one of the most important things that my readers will ever accomplish in life and is something they have a very strong desire to do, which may or may not be the case. Only you know your readers and your topic, so only you can decide what the correct ending to an essay is and why your topic is pertinent to them.

2. Be concise.

When you are in elementary school, it is important for children to learn as many new words as possible by producing detailed sentences with many descriptive words . This teaches them vocabulary, encourages them to think about their senses and all around helps them to develop life skills both involving writing as well as not that they will use for the rest of their life. Everyone above the age of say 15 however, should think twice about using too much, flowery, descriptive language in their writing. Yes, I AM asking you to write that two page 12 point font Times New Roman single spaced essay without filling it full of extra, unnecessary words. Be concise; get to the point. NO ONE, your teachers and readers alike, has time to read a BS'ed essay. You aren't being asked for two typed pages to kill time; rather you are being asked for two pages so that your topic is well-developed and thoroughly thought out. Do your research and make those two full pages worth someone's time. (The same goes for blogging. You may not be asked for 2 pages, but at least use those two or three paragraphs you write thoughtfully.)

3. Edit, edit, edit.

Honestly, tip #3 is why I am not a writer (aside from blogging). I edit too much. I edit e-mails, and blog posts from 3 years ago; I edit my pictures and then edit them so more. I edit, edit, edit I'm constantly thinking about how I can improve myself and my work. If you aren't editing, you are probably sending misspelled, long-winded, insufficient communication to those you love and work with. You are better than that.

4. Know your audience.

Truth: One of the best ways I have found to develop my writing is through e-mails. You are already aware of your audience, so you can hone down what you are saying to fit with what you know about the person.

For example, when writing to a MALE friend in GERMANY whose first language is not English, I would write concisely (men are pretty concise, they like getting to the point quickly) and I would use simple(r) words, especially at the beginning of my time getting to know this person. I would spend hours at a time editing and re-editing my emails trying to figure out how to say what I wanted to say in a way that was understandable, simple, and with as few words as possible. While this did help improve my skills, I am glad that his English is now so good that I have quit bothering with simple words and I just write how I speak. lol. It makes e-mails much easier now.

That experience is very different than writing to a FEMALE friend who happened to be taking classes higher up than I was in English. As her writing improved and she used more and more vocabulary, I found my writing improving. Given that she was female though, there was quite a bit more forgiveness for rambling in our correspondence.

5. Begin each sentence with a different word.

Do this within paragraphs AND within essays. If you begin every paragraph with the same word (or word structure), your readers will get bored at the monotony. Try changing it up. Instead of "The dinosaur ate all of it's food. The dinosaur was hungry." why not say: "The tyrannosaurus rex ate every last bit of it's food. As it turns out, dinosaurs are very hungry creature and will eat anything within sight." I embellished a bit, but you get the idea. :)

6. Knit-picky Things:

• Run-on sentences are bad unless you have a good reason to use one.
• Write out the numbers one through ten. You can shorten 11 and above. (I don't know why. That's just the way it is.)
• Use paragraphs! Puuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhlllllllleeeeeasssseeeee!!!! There is nothing quite like reading 15 paragraphs all mushed up together.
• Check your spelling. Spell-checker won't necessarily catch the difference between "two", "too", and "to". (In fact, a good number of people don't either!)
• Synonyms are your friend. Don't use the same words over and over again to describe the same things. Be different! Be unique! Be awesome!