How To Improve Your Writing Skills
Students should be good writers to pass all written assignments successfully. Learn how to improve these skills with the help of tips from this article.
Higher education is very valuable nowadays. Development of different technologies in all manufacturing spheres needs highly-qualified staff. From this very point of view, people with higher education have a great number of advantages over others. However, the main nightmare of each student is written assignments because many of them don’t have good writing skills. Certainly, it is possible to outsource your work and forget about different troubles with essay writing. On the other hand, it will be much better to improve your writing skills by yourself because these skills will come in handy during your whole life.
General Tips on Improving Writing Skills for Students
Although many people are used to thinking that it is impossible to improve writing skills if you are not a talented author by nature, there are many useful and efficient recommendations on how to cope with this problem. Many students all over the world used these tips to start writing better, and have achieved really good results. So, here are the most effective recommendations which may help you to compose different texts quickly and easily:
Read more – write better.
Many people don’t like reading at all, and this fact is the seat of the trouble with writing skills. Some students hate reading as well because they have too many different textbooks to read and too little time for other hobbies. However, good reading is the key to good writing. When you read classic literature, you form your style of writing, memorize spelling of different words and use of certain grammar constructions, and enlarge your active vocabulary. Certainly, all these actions will help you to formulate your thoughts in a written form better. So, try to find time and desire to read a good book, even if you don’t like reading at all.
Don’t waste your time.
It is not a secret that many students must combine work and study somehow to earn money for tuition, or just have different troubles with time management, and this fact influences the quality of their written assignments very much. It is very difficult to create an interesting and logical text without any mistakes if you don’t have enough time for it. That is why the best recommendation for all students who want to write better is to find enough time for it even if this very assignment seems boring. The best approach is to start working on the task immediately after it was assigned to you by your professor.
Start with a detailed plan.
Most students don’t have serious problems with spelling or grammar. The main difficulty is to make the entire structure of the text more coherent. To cope with this problem, planning is the solution – it will be much easier to make any task if you make its detailed plan first. That is why, if you need to write an essay, for example, and already have a ready topic for it, compose a plan of the future text. Don’t forget about integral parts of each essay such as an introduction, three main paragraphs, and a conclusion. You should include all of them in your plan.
Free writing as a practice.
It is impossible to master any skills without everyday practice, and writing is not an exception. Even if you don’t have any written assignments at the University, write every day if you want to become a good writer. In this case, the best approach to use is called a free-writing practice. All you should do is to find a blank sheet of paper and a pen, and just start writing everything that is coming to your head even if these things seem nonsense. This practice was used by many well-known authors such as Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain, and others. By using this technique, you may kill two birds with one stone – have writing practice on the one hand, and increase your creativity on the other hand. Moreover, this method can be used as a way of brainstorming if you cannot choose a good topic, or don’t know how to start your text.
Certainly, all above-mentioned measures will not make you a talented author with a wave of a magic wand, but several months of constant practice may really improve the skill overall.
How to Revise Different Texts on Your Own Effectively?
Although writing skills of some students leave much to be desired, there is one more thing that should be mentioned if we are talking about written assignments and text creation skills. Many students may compose different texts perfectly, but they neglect revision or don’t even have enough time or desire to revise the finished works. However, revision is an integral part of work because it also may help you to polish your text, and increase the final grade for this assignment eventually.
Even if you don’t have a professional proofreader among your friends, it is still possible for you to check your texts properly before handing them to your professors. Here are the best ways to do it:
Check the finished text in the morning.
It is very difficult to check the text on your own if you are tired. Therefore, the best way to revise the text is to look at it with a fresh eye in the ordinary sense of this word. Certainly, you may try to re-read a finished text in the evening, but after a good night’s rest, your revision can be more effective, so don’t neglect it.
Read aloud.
Usually, many students just read all texts to themselves to check them. Certainly, it is a classic approach to revision, but it is much better to read the text aloud. This practice is considered more efficient especially if the author of the text doesn’t have troubles with grammar, but has difficulties with punctuation.
Read the text from the end to the beginning.
Although many students are used to reading a text from the beginning to the end sentence by sentence, it is possible to increase efficiency of revision with the help of changing the order. Start reading the text sentence by sentence from the end to the beginning. In this case, all your attention will be concentrated better on a certain sentence, and you will have more chances to find and correct all your mistakes.
Ask your groupmate to revise your text.
As it was said before, checking the text with a fresh eye is much better. However, if you don’t have enough time for it or didn’t sleep well last night, you may ask your friend or groupmate to help you with it. This approach may help to save your time efficiently. Moreover, another person will be more attentive to different mistakes in a new text, and he or she will correct them a little bit easier than you. What is more, you also may help someone in such a way. In this case, you may also improve your grammar if you see and correct someone else’s mistakes in the written assignment.
Writing skills need constant polishing but, fortunately, most students are able to become good writers if they really want. All you need in this case is everyday practice and a strong desire.
