3 Writing Tips that May Change Your Writing Forever

Writing is an important part of communication. Writing is also an important job skill. Good writing skills allow you to communicate your thoughts and ideas easily with a larger audience. In addition, your ability to write a cover letter and resume are the first steps to getting a job. 

 

 

Improving your writing is a process. Fortunately, the more you write, the easier it will be to write accurately and fluently.

These 3 tips will help you improve your writing skills in English. They may give you much better results than usual.

1. Spend More Time Reading

Reading is one of the best ways to improve your writing skills. Most good writers read a lot. If you want to improve your English writing skills, you must read more in English. 

Really Learn English eBooks are a fun way to read English and improve your skills!

Reading shows you many styles and forms of writing and exposes you to writing that is better than your own. While reading, your mind stores words, phrases, and patterns. Through reading, you will also discover new vocabulary and different ways you can use language to express yourself. 

You can keep notes of new things you learn while reading, or just read for enjoyment and let your mind do the work of storing what you read.

2. Learn to Type

Typing is an important skill for written communication. Typing is something most of us will do a lot of in our jobs. You may have to write a report or send emails. There are many reasons you should learn to type fast and accurately. 

The faster you can type, the more time you will save. You can spend more time focusing on other tasks, and less time thinking about your writing. You will be a more productive worker.

Typing also helps improve spelling and grammar. You can use automatic spelling and grammar checks. Most word processing programs highlight or fix your mistakes as you type. That means you will spend less time checking for mistakes in your writing. 

 

Some helpful tools:

• http://www.ozdic.com: natural collocations dictionary. It helps you to use the best word combinations and sound natural in English. (free)
• https://ludwig.guru: a tool to find sentences in contexts, compare word combination frequency, discover missing words, paraphrase sentences and check word group order. (free and paid)

Some students feel like using automatic spelling and grammar checks is cheating and does not improve your writing. This may be true in some cases. However, you can learn from these checks and improve your written English. Use these programs as a learning experience. 

Spelling and grammar checks can help you locate problems with your grammar and spelling skills. You can look at the suggestions and decide how to fix an error. You may be surprised at how much you learn!

 

3. Don’t Edit While You Write + a Bonus Tip

Editing while you write can make writing more complicated than needed.

Do you write slowly because you keep editing yourself? Here’s a tip: write first, edit later. 

Combining your editing with your writing contributes to several issues:

1. Writing may become much slower.
   
   
2. It interrupts or even stops the flow of creative thoughts.
   
   
3. It complicates the process and may stop you altogether. (Sometimes people tend to give up if a task becomes too complicated.)

The best way to express your ideas is to just start writing! Once you are done putting your thoughts into words, you can begin editing and make it perfect.

When you start a new writing project, you can create a written outline. An outline is a short summary of the main points you want to cover. In many cases, even when you don’t make a written outline, you have some kind of a general outline in your head. However, writing it in advance can help the structure and logic of your work.

After the outline, start writing your draft. It is not perfect, and that is ok. It is good to edit your writing, but first you need to focus on putting your thoughts and ideas on paper.

You will correct whatever is needed on the next steps, and your final version will be just right. :-)

Finally, after your outline, writing, and editing, you can perform the final step to perfect your writing. This step tends to get rid of small, hard-to-detect errors. It is called proofreading aloud. It is a game-changer. Try it and see for yourself! :-)

After you finish editing, read it aloud to yourself.

It must be done aloud (with your voice). Reading it quietly, in your own head, does not give the same great results.

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So next time you write, you can use this simple 4-step process:

1. Make a short outline. It should include the main points you wish to cover. It should also include the end goal of your writing. (What is the end result you want to achieve with this piece of writing?)
   
   
2. Write your draft. Do not edit while you write. Just write.
   
   
3. Edit your writing until you are satisfied with the result.
   
   
4. Read it aloud to yourself. Correct whatever is needed and repeat until you are happy with the final result.

Isn’t it beautiful that to make our writing as good as possible, we should read, write, and speak the words? :-)

Homework

1. Do you have a topic on which you need to write? Let’s use it.
   
   
2. Make a short outline. It should include the end goal of your writing (What is the end result you want to achieve with this piece of writing?) and the main points you will cover.
   
   
3. Write your draft. Do not edit while you write. Just write.
   
   
4. Edit your writing until you are satisfied with the result.
   
   
5. Read it aloud to yourself. Correct whatever is needed and repeat until you are happy with the final result.
   
   
6. Write down your conclusions from this assignment. Does this process help your writing? Are there additional things you could do to help you write better and more efficiently?