Grammarly Blog. Learning a variety of writing skills isn’t as difficult as you may think. We’ve put together a list of steps to help you make dramatic improvements to the quality of your writing in short order.
Becoming a better writer takes practice, and you’re already practicing. No, seriously—you write a lot. Even if you don’t think of yourself as a writer, you put thoughts into text more often than you realize. At the very least, you write emails—a lot of emails—post on social media, make updates to your résumé and LinkedIn profile, and message your friends. If your job requires it, you also create things like reports, presentations, newsletters . . . it’s a long list.
So, you’re already writing. Now, improving your writing skills is just a matter of becoming conscious of the things you can do to give your text more structure and make your copy crisp and readable with a conversational style.
It’s fine to rattle off a stream of consciousness when you’re writing in your journal, but if you actually want to communicate with others you’ll need to bring some order to those rambling thoughts. Here are some tips.
- Make sure you’re clear on the concepts you’re writing about.
- If the message is complex, outline it.
- Don’t over-explain everything.
- Go easy on the prepositional phrases
- Eliminate the filler words and phrases
- Don’t pad weak words with adverbs.
- Stick with simple words.
- Use contractions.
- Try transcribing yourself.
- Throw away the grammar rule book . . . within reason.
- Keep your sentences simple.
- Read it out loud.
- Infuse your personality into your writing
- Practice, practice, practice!
