You writing

Writing Skills:. Subscribe to our FREE newsletter and start improving your life in just 5 minutes a day. Writing skills are an important part of communication. Good writing skills allow you to communicate your message with clarity and ease to a far larger audience than through face-to-face or telephone conversations. You might be called upon to write a report , plan or strategy at work; write a grant application or press release within a volunteering role; or you may fancy communicating your ideas online via a blog.

3 Ways to Make Your Writing Clearer

Nothing strikes fear into the heart of a marketer quite like being asked to write a blog post. Some marketers would rather wrestle with pivot tables or grizzly bears for days on end than write a blog post — but why?

With content marketing shaping up as one of the most important marketing skills to have on your resume, getting a handle on writing could really benefit your career as well as the obvious benefit of increasing traffic to your company's site. Here are 16 ways you can start improving your writing skills right now. For quick and easy online resources, bookmark Grammar Girl and, of course, Merriam Webster. Unfortunately, there are few shortcuts that can transform you into an amazing writer overnight, and even the most talented writers had to learn their craft over a period of many years.

It's admitedly even harder to write while considering SEO and how to drive traffic to your post. If you want to improve your writing skills, writing on a regular basis will not only diminish your fear of the blank page or blinking cursor , it will also help you develop a unique style. So, even if nobody reads it, keep writing. Practice makes perfect. The best writers are also keen readers, and reading on a regular basis is an easy way to start developing your writing skills. Expand your horizons to more challenging material than you typically read, and pay attention to sentence structure, word choice, and how the material flows.

The more you read, the more likely you are to develop an eye for what makes a piece so effective, and which mistakes to avoid. Most people balk at the idea of standing in front of a room full of strangers and baring their soul to the world, but joining a writing workshop can be immensely beneficial — and a lot of fun if you manage to find a good one. These days, content marketing meet-ups and professional development groups are becoming wildly popular.

Join one of the many content marketing groups on LinkedIn to meet like-minded writers, or search for writing workshops near you on sites like Meetup.

Pick a topic, write something, listen to the feedback of the group, and then revise it. Rinse, repeat. Most people read the same blogs or sites on a regular basis because the material appeals to them — but fewer people understand why their favorite blogs are so appealing. Find a handful of recent blog posts you really like, then print them out. Next, just like your high school English teacher did, take a red pen and highlight things you liked: certain sentences, turns of phrase, even entire paragraphs.

Examine why you like these elements, and see if there are any common threads in your favored reading material. See how writers take one subject and transition into another. Apply these techniques to your own work. The pacing is excellent, it grabs your attention, and best of all, it keeps you reading. This piece was first published back in June, and I still remember it.

Read the full post here , and see how Morris masterfully tells the story of a band named Death and how this relates to writing content. Before we go any further, a disclaimer — imitation is not the same as plagiarism. Identify what it is you enjoy about their work, and see if you can use it to improve your writing skills.

Does a writer you like use humor to spice up dry topics? Try it. Do they use pop culture references to make their work entertaining and useful? Try that, too. I also attempted and failed to imitate writers such as Dave Eggers and Dan Kennedy, but soon realized that I wasn't funny enough and gave it up.

Over time, I eventually developed my own style, but reading the works of these writers and seeing how they constructed their essays and books was immensely helpful to me as a writer see tip 3.

The blinking cursor of a blank page is a considerable foe, even for the most experienced writers. Before putting pen to proverbial paper, sketch out an outline of what you plan to write. This will be your battle plan, and it will help you win the war. Very few — and I do mean very few — writers sit down to write anything without a solid plan in mind. A simple framework of which sections should appear in a particular order, along with a few sentences about what each section contains, may be enough.

If you start to feel lost, refer back to your outline and get back to kicking ass and taking names. Several examples three or four of content that aligns well with marketing positioning and branding of recognizable brands. This outline eventually became my recent post about brand voice. I deviated from my initial outline slightly, but the overarching structure was always there to keep me on target. Editing is a tough skill to learn for beginner writers, because they place immense value on the time and effort they put into writing in the first place.

However, a lot of writing is actually rewriting, and this is where the cold, hard eye of an editor will serve you well.

Develop the discipline it takes to eliminate extraneous words more on this shortly. Resist the temptation to wax lyrically and get to the point.

Not sure if a paragraph works? Be tough on yourself, and know when to delete or rework something. Your work will be much stronger as a result.

The best writers make it look so easy. Just get your ideas down on paper first, then go back and start cleaning up. Writing is an iterative process, and even the best writers have to spend a lot of time reworking material they were probably too embarrassed to show anybody.

In many cases, shorter sentences can have a greater impact. This lengthy sentence is a prime candidate for a ruthless red pen, even if my lame jokes were intended to give it a little more flavor. When I look back at my early work, which I do every so often, it literally makes me cringe. Every now and then but not too often , re-read your earlier work and marvel at how much better you are now than you were then. Pat yourself on the back. Most content on the web is bland and dreadfully boring.

This is because far too many bloggers focus on regurgitating the same news as everybody else without bothering to add their own opinions.

This makes for more interesting reading. In their eagerness to be done with a blog post or even major newspaper article , many writers try to take shortcuts with the facts. This can range from accidentally fudging a statistic out of haste to being lazy when it comes to sourcing or attribution.

You should definitely take the time to write as well as you can, proofread and edit your work thoroughly, and ensure that your piece flows logically from one point to the next. Originally from the U. Home Blog. Last updated: March 5, Content Marketing. Dan Shewan. Find out if you're making mistakes with Google Ads.

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When writing, students often become stumped about the appropriate use of personal pronouns such as “I” and “you.”. Write & Improve is a free service for learners of English to practise their written English. Submit your written work and receive feedback in seconds, covering.

A style guide by stealth - how anyone can write well and can enjoy good writing 'Moran is a past master at producing fine, accessible non-fiction. Advanced maths has no practical use, and is understood by few. A symphony can be widely appreciated, but created only by a genius. Good writing, however, can be written and read by anyone if we give it the gift of our time. And a sentence might be as near as many of us will get to orchestrating beauty.

You should certainly spell-check and proofread every document before you click submit.

In a post-secondary environment, academic expectations change from what you may have experienced in high school. The quantity of work you are expected to do is increased.

16 Easy Ways to Improve Your Writing Skills

Today, a printed letter is usually reserved for important professional communications, such as recommendation letters, job cover letters, resignation letters, legal correspondence, and company communications. Since a letter is a formal mode of communication, you'll want to know how to write one that seemsprofessional. Correct formatting is especially important if you're sending a hard copy to the recipient rather than an email because the letter needs to fit the page and look good. Dear Mr. If you do not know the person's gender, you can write out their full name. Crody" or "Dear Ms.

Writing Skills

Nothing strikes fear into the heart of a marketer quite like being asked to write a blog post. Some marketers would rather wrestle with pivot tables or grizzly bears for days on end than write a blog post — but why? With content marketing shaping up as one of the most important marketing skills to have on your resume, getting a handle on writing could really benefit your career as well as the obvious benefit of increasing traffic to your company's site. Here are 16 ways you can start improving your writing skills right now. For quick and easy online resources, bookmark Grammar Girl and, of course, Merriam Webster. Unfortunately, there are few shortcuts that can transform you into an amazing writer overnight, and even the most talented writers had to learn their craft over a period of many years. It's admitedly even harder to write while considering SEO and how to drive traffic to your post. If you want to improve your writing skills, writing on a regular basis will not only diminish your fear of the blank page or blinking cursor , it will also help you develop a unique style. So, even if nobody reads it, keep writing. Practice makes perfect.

Apart from counting words and characters, our online editor can help you to improve word choice and writing style, and, optionally, help you to detect grammar mistakes and plagiarism.

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Every paper you write should have a main point, a main idea, or central message. The argument s you make in your paper should reflect this main idea. The sentence that captures your position on this main idea is what we call a thesis statement.

I've long been inspired by an idea I first learned about in The Artist's Way called morning pages. Morning pages are three pages of writing done every day, typically encouraged to be in "long hand", typically done in the morning, that can be about anything and everything that comes into your head. It's about getting it all out of your head, and is not supposed to be edited or censored in any way. The idea is that if you can get in the habit of writing three pages a day, that it will help clear your mind and get the ideas flowing for the rest of the day. Unlike many of the other exercises in that book, I found that this one actually worked and was really really useful. I've used the exercise as a great way to think out loud without having to worry about half-formed ideas, random tangents, private stuff, and all the other things in our heads that we often filter out before ever voicing them or writing about them. It's a daily brain dump. Over time, I've found that it's also very helpful as a tool to get thoughts going that have become stuck, or to help get to the bottom of a rotten mood. Here's how it works:. In the past, looking for a spare notebook was probably easier than looking for a computer. Not anymore. I don't know if my hands even work anymore with pen and paper for any task that takes longer than signing a check or credit card receipt.

Improve your writing fast. It's free. It is provided in association with Cambridge English part of the University of Cambridge. Automatic grades and feedback for English writing. So you can work more on these areas and keep improving. Check your spelling, grammar and vocabulary and try again. You can try again as often as you like. Understand your progress.