Developing Your Essay Writing Skills – The Best Strategy
So you’re no stranger to writing essays… in which case you may have fallen into the trap of regurgitating the same phrases of styles in your writing. It’s always good to improve your writing skills and you should try and do so with each new paper you come to. Even professional writers do this! If you want to develop your essay writing skills but don’t know how to go about it, here’s the best strategy:
Key things to look for
You should look at each part of your writing separately and try to develop each area. Such parts include:
- Choice of vocabulary: Could you choose better words? Ones which are more complex or more suitable?
- Flow: Do your sentences and paragraphs flow well enough?
- Relevancy: Do you sometimes go off the point? Cut or change anything that’s not relevant or needed.
- Conciseness: Could you make sections of your writing more succinct?
- Descriptive: Could your writing style be more descriptive and is this appropriate for the type of paper you’re composing? Alter your style according to the type of paper.
- Passion: Do your words contain passion and energy to make it an interesting read?
Be as objective as you can be
The more objective you can be about your work, and the more you can scrutinize it with a critical eye, the better it will be. Try reading your work as though you’re somebody else. Pretend that you are someone who knows nothing about the subject being presented. Would they be able to understand it all? Would your writing hold their attention?
Study other papers to get tips
Often the best way to develop your essay writing skills is by reading other essays. You will find plenty in your campus and public libraries, as well as online. But make sure that you study good examples! Reading professional writers’ papers would certainly be beneficial. Study these papers well to see how the writer has tackled each part. Make plenty of notes as you go along and you should end up with plenty of tips you can use to write your own.
Listen to criticism
Take on board any criticism that has been given on your past writing. Learning from the past is the best way to move forward!
Ask for advice
You could even ask your teacher if they could give you some helpful advice on how to improve your academic writing.
