How to Improve Your Writing Skills

Original Editor - Michael Rowe

Top Contributors - Ewa Jaraczewska, Jess Bell and Kim Jackson  

Introduction

Transforming and organising ideas into written text is complex. Writing is a process which involves the integration of higher and lower-level skills. High-level skills relate to the content, structure and organisation of a text. Low-level skills include punctuation, grammatical structure and choice of appropriate vocabulary.

Writing competence is essential in daily life and academic achievement. Writing helps us to express our ideas. It assists with building analytical, rational and critical thinking skills and presentation skills. It even helps us to be more eloquent, concise and elegant in our speech.

Academic writing, which includes writing essays, reports, theses, scientific papers, or reviews of articles, is not easy. Students need to refine their writing skills to be able to execute academic tasks more successfully. This article discusses different perspectives on writing and offers suggestions to help you improve your ability to write and communicate.

Definitions

"Writing is refined thinking." -- Stephen King

Writing: a form of human communication that involves representing language through symbols.

Text: the result of writing.

Reader: the interpreter of the text.

Why Write?

"Clear writing is a signal to the reader that you're capable of clear thinking." -- Michael Rowe

Writing should bring clarity and structure to your thinking, and it may help you improve your learning and understanding.

Weak Writing

Most novice writers are weak writers. Some reasons for poor writing include the following:

• The curse of knowledge: the writer is unable to grasp the idea that the reader may not have the same level of knowledge as them.
• The writer does not understand what they are writing about. They use jargon and complicated ideas to convince the reader they know what they are talking about.
• Overuse of the passive voice. Passive writing is impersonal. It hides the active participant in the text and comes across as vague and evasive.

Classic Style

The classic style provides a good foundation for improving writing.

When you write in the classic style, you:

• tell the reader something true and important that they did not already know
• tell the story in a way that there is no doubt as to what you mean
• must understand the concept thoroughly before putting it into words

The classic style is premised on the following:

• the writer has seen something in the world
• the writer positions the reader so they can see it with their own eyes
• the reader and writer are equals
• the goal is to help the reader see something that is real
• the style is conversational

Rules of Writing

• Writers must be able to express themselves
• Writers must have a basic understanding of the rules of language
• Writers must have good reading skills - reading provides insight into how others use language to communicate

"If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot" -- Stephen King

Rules of Writing a Research Paper

Weixiong Zhang provides the following ten rules to help you write a research paper:

1. Your paper should be a driving force:
   • Design a research project with your final paper in mind.
2. Less is more
   • producing "fewer but more significant papers serve both the research community and one’s career better than more papers of less significance"
3. Choose the right audience
4. Present the experiments and results in a logical order
5. Be thorough and make sure the presentation is complete:
   • Discuss the hypothesis, interpret results, include adequate background and introductory material, be transparent, and make sure figures and tables are self-contained
6. Be concise
7. Be artistic:
   • Pay attention to spelling, grammar, usage, paragraph indentation, page margins, fonts, writing style, etc
8. Be critical while revising your draft
   • delete parts of your text that do not fit
9. Gather feedback and critiques from colleagues, coworkers, and friends and ask them for opinions, suggestions, and comments
10. Treat reviews with respect and assess their feedback objectively

Stages of Writing

Writing is an iterative process, with four overlapping phases: pre-writing, drafting, editing and revising. Writers should be open to changing their thinking and destination during the writing process.

In the pre-writing phase, the writer outlines their idea, searches for necessary resources, and organises the content.

During the drafting phase, you will write a complete draft of the text. You shouldn't be aiming for perfection in this phase. Instead, you are trying to structure your overall argument. Writers usually prepare several drafts and often delete whole sections of text that do not align with the purpose of their task.

"Writing multiple drafts of a piece of work is the only way to get it into the best version it can be." -- Michael Rowe

In the editing phase, the focus is on tidying up your writing. This can include attending to transitions between paragraphs or subsections, signposting, improving grammar, correctly formatting references, and deleting what isn't working. During this phase, you might send your text to someone who is a better writer than you and ask them for feedback to improve it further. Authors amend fundamental aspects of their original text during the revising phase based on the feedback received. In a revision, you might have to change some of the structure of the text or how the evidence is presented.

"Revision is best understood as re-vision. Re-vision. Re-think. Re-imagine. It’s mind’s eye work. You hover above the paper and re-visualise its topography. You see it again. You bring a fresh perspective to the task. You re-place your original idea with another. And then re-write." -- Pat Thomson

Text Structure

The structure of a text may vary depending on the topic, the audience and the purpose of writing. However, each piece should contain the following three sections:

• Introduction
  • includes the main concepts readers need to be familiar with in order to understand the text
  • identifies the main characters in the story
  • presents the problem that the writer is going to resolve through the writing
  • shows the background or context in which the narrative takes place
• Body of the text
  • includes the writer's arguments that relate to the characters / problems introduced earlier
  • writers should be consistent in how they frame their arguments in the body of the text
    • if presenting your text chronologically, you should avoid switching to a different frame, like geographical or social
    • while it is possible to switch between perspectives, it can be jarring if it is not done well
• Conclusion
  • ties up loose ends in the text
  • answers questions that were posed earlier
  • brings a character's story to a close / resolves the problems presented in the introduction

Barriers to Writing

Barrier # 1: Lack of time/procrastination.

Solution: schedule time to write until daily writing is a habit ("time blocking").

Barrier # 2: Waiting to have the right resources.

Solution: there will always be more research, more articles to read, and more notes to make, so start NOW.

Barrier # 3: Inadequate equipment, e.g. old computer.

Solution: develop a habit of carrying a pen and notepad to write almost anywhere.

Barrier # 4: Waiting for inspiration.

Solution: the more you write, the better you get at writing. Do not wait for inspiration. Allocate the time to write.

Barrier #5: Having "writer’s block."

Solution: writer's block is not real. Start by putting one word after another, editing, gathering resources, reading, and taking notes. You should continue writing even when you do not feel like it or doubt your writing skills.

Barrier # 6: The writing environment is not set up yet.

Solution: disconnect from the internet, turn off your device notifications, and eliminate all possible distractions. Sit down at the desk in the corner of your room, take out your pen and notepad, and start writing. Your writing environment is ready.

Tips to Improve Writing

Tip # 1: Writing is learned best through gaining writing experience. To improve your writing, you should read a lot.

Tip #2: Write one word at a time because this is how writing is accomplished, and write consistently.

Tip # 3: Invest in learning. Write about the topic you care about and feel that others should care about.

Tip # 4: Clear thinking becomes clear writing. Do not use jargon, big words or symbols. Avoid adverbs and long paragraphs.

Tip #5: Avoid words such as very, quite, basically, actually, virtually, extremely, remarkably, and completely. They do not have any impact on the sentence.

Tip #6: Including citations at the end of the sentence replaces these sentences: “Research shows that…”, “Recent studies indicate that…”, or “New findings suggest that…” as they add little meaning.

Tip # 7: Be selective about what you want to include in your writing and leave out whatever doesn't serve the purpose of your writing.

Tip # 8: Use a dictionary and a thesaurus to expand your vocabulary while writing.

Resources

1. Graham P. How to write usefully.
2. Pinker S. 10 'grammar rules' it's OK to break (sometimes).
3. Ball CE, Loewe DM. Bad ideas about writing.