Writing is the art and science of communicating with structured sentences and organized details. It is the ability to transfer information through written materials without distorting the intended message. Hence, the best writers understand the basic principles of writing, including grammar, punctuation and spelling. In essay writing, the objective shifts from mere communication to comprehensively responding to a prompt. The audience of an essay is an informed person with a better understanding of the concepts under review. Hence, an essay writer must demonstrate their ability to analyze the prompt and provide sufficient information based on the expected structure and rubric. Here are ten tips on how to improve your writing skills.
Five Easy Ways to Polish Writing Skills
1: Read widely
Reading helps you polish writing skills by exposing you to different writing styles and vocabulary. Books and other written materials train the reader to direct and focus on specific subjects, expanding their perspectives about the content and presentation methods. Hence, reading is a practice learning approach for developing diction, sentence structure, and grammar. Most readers unknowingly become better writers as their understanding of written concepts develops.
2: Practice
While reading broadens one’s perspective, only writing can help one expand their ability to present ideas. Writing practice helps you write better papers through continuous improvement and learning from one’s mistakes. Practicing different writing styles and writing to various audiences broadens your capacity to communicate effectively. This approach is more effective when you receive feedback from others, especially through positive criticism.
3: Back to the basics
While the art of writing dominates the quality and presentation debates, the science of writing defines the readability and practicality of the written work. Writing is a science with defined rules and regulations. Understanding the basic grammar, punctuation, spelling, and elements of style will help you write better essays. Unfortunately, no magical tricks can transform one into a pro writer. The same writing principles that apply to Dan Brown and Danielle Steel govern writing for every college student.
4: Travel
Travelling may not be useful for those looking to sharpen their academic writing skills only. However, exploration creates a firm basis for creative writing. Travelling helps writers develop broader ideas for their audience. It helps you expand your content through exposure to new problems and solutions. Travelling expands your understanding of the real world, pushing you through the spectator’s lens and sometimes making you a player in other people’s stories.
5: Connect with people
Writing is also an art defined by the writer’s ability to articulate the content and drive it through the audience’s ear. Meeting and connecting with people expands your capacity to present ideas through different perspectives. It helps one acknowledge and accommodate different worldviews. Besides, interacting with others is an easy way of accessing free essay writing help. Although essay writing services with professional writers can offer better assistance, connecting with peers and educators expands your worldview.
Five Tips to Improve Essay Writing Immediately
1: Plan
Writing an essay is a systematic process with specific steps defined under the instructions. The instructor often limits the scope of the paper based on the required content, number of words, writing style, and references required. The best essay writing approach must start with reading and understanding the instructions. Use the rubric to structure and plan your paper, creating an outline according to the main sections. No research is needed when creating the first outline. However, you may refer to several sources to extract unique details and develop a thesis statement.
2: Research
A good essay must accommodate rhetoric, cementing the reliability and credibility of the content by using ethos, pathos, and logos. Incorporating other people’s opinions in your academic paper makes your paper more credible and the information more reliable. Thus, research is an easy way to improve essay writing, proving evidence and integrating supportive arguments from respected individuals. A good essay should accommodate divergent views and offer solutions for better research methodology.
3: Use simple language and sentence structure
Academic writing focuses less on the writer’s creativity and more on their ability to present solutions to specific prompts. Your professor is less interested in your ability to create content. Instead, an academic essay is a presentation of ideas based on one’s understanding of the course material and ability to investigate new educational information. Using simple language and sentence structures helps one improve essay writing skills by maintaining the paper’s focus on the answers to the prompt. Using jargon and colloquial phrases can distract the reader, shifting the attention from the content. The best approach for making academic essays more effective is simplicity and structured responses.
Use an outline to organize your work and focus the content based on the rubric. The outline should contain the important sections of an essay, including an introduction, the body, and a conclusion. The introduction should contain a hook as the first sentence and a thesis statement as the last. A purpose statement may be useful, especially for longer essays, hinting at the content and demonstrating to the professors that you understand the instructions. The body section may contain several subheadings based on the size and scope of the paper. However, this section should not deviate from the main arguments presented in the thesis statement. The concluding paragraph should reiterate the author’s perspective without additional information or examples.
4: Proofread
Your first draft is never good enough for any reader. A good reader knows when to review their work and eliminate unnecessary materials. Using professional editors is a tested method for improving writing skills, especially for creating writers. However, proofreading your work for errors, typos, and grammatical mistakes is necessary in writing. Take some time off after completing your first draft. Review your work after the break, paying attention to the flow and content presentation. Focus on the development of ideas and their relevance to the essay prompt. Use the grading rubric to countercheck your responses and make relevant changes. Pass your paper through a grammar checker to improve the sentence structures and identify mistakes. Use a plagiarism checker to assess the similarity index in your document before submission.
5: Get feedback
Peer reviews and professional editing are the best ways to improve writing skills. Even the most experienced professors publish their work via peer-reviewed journals to improve the credibility and reliability of their papers. Ask a friend to review your assignment for mistakes and relevance to the essay prompt. Similarly, analyzing your professor’s feedback expands your understanding of the writing requirements and helps you avoid similar mistakes in future. Feedback is also critical when changes are needed before grading. Analyzing the recommendations can change your grade or position you for a better one in the next test.
Takeaway
While reading and writing practice are the best approaches for polishing essay writing skills, connecting with people and traveling can help expand the writer’s worldview. Besides, the best essays are those that adhere to the grading rubric. Hence, a good essay writer must always read the instructions and plan and organize their papers based on the requirements. They must also use simple language and sentence structures to maintain the reader’s focus and eliminate distraction. The final step in writing a better essay is proofreading, which involves continuously improving the content and presentation style at different editing stages. One must also accommodate feedback from peers and professionals when revising their work. Improve your writing skills by following the basic writing process.