Ever asked, “how can I improve my English writing skills?” Then don’t worry, this guide is specially baked for you.
English writing can be very daunting, especially for non-native English writers, however, if you have English as a foreign language, there are various approaches I will love to share with you to enhance your writing skills.
I call these approaches the most effective guide in English writing skills. Someone might be wondering if there could be improved writing features in both a native English writer and a non-native English writer. Read on to find out what I mean to say in this piece.
To some students, the English language is the hardest study one can encounter while some will say that mathematics is very difficult because it involves calculations.
A few days ago, I listened to two students argue over the English language been so difficult because it’s pretty hard to detect some grammatical errors. One is of the opinion that English writing can involve a lot of unidentified errors as no one is truly a professor in the English language.
Many students will always find it a tedious task searching the correct spellings of certain words, knowing the exact meaning and how to make use of words with disambiguation, and wrapping the writings up with good grammar to deliver a strong message. Yet this is required to help you write your examinations and pass with high grades.
A special guide to the question “How can I improve my English writing skills?”
Only through writing, we can communicate with a greater number of people in the world, and for our content to be read by the targeted audience, we seriously need to work on our writing skills.
1. Do not hide what you write.
If you have a personal diary or jotter where you do the majority of your writings and keep it to yourself alone, there are serious cases of you remaining a bad English writer.
To develop sound writing skills, you should always feel free to share what you have written with friends or even in an online writing community.
By so doing, your writing can reach a greater number of people, ranging from school professors to other students online who can pitch their support and corrections.
You can always learn from them as no knowledge is purely independent.
2. Develop a good structure for your writing.
In writing, you have to develop a quality pattern of writing like the; topic sentences, sequencing language, transition sentences, and concluding sentences.
If the ideas in your paper connect logically from beginning to end and relate to your reader’s life experience, it compensates for mistakes you might make in writing English.
3. Build your vocabulary and phrases from academic writing
As a student who wants to focus mainly on academic writing skills, you can improve on them by reading academic papers.
Observe the vocabulary used and familiarize your writings with them, do not hesitate to look up any word or phrase that is new to you and know how to build a better grammatical structure with it in your own form.
After the use of these new words, you can show it to someone to help you check if you have used them properly and make corrections if any.
4. Work with a professional proofreader
To have clean writing free from grammatical or spelling errors including structure and formatting, the work of a professional proofreader is highly recommended.
Considering the cost of hiring a proofreader, I don’t mean you should do this always, you can do that fewer times and learn from the corrections which can then improve your own writing skills.
There are several places you can get online proofreaders and pay a little amount of money for their services. If you can afford the money, go on and do it, the services of a professional proofreader is worth paying for.
You can get proofreaders from online writing communities like; Fiverr.com, and UpWork.com.
If you have a professional proofreader as a friend, then you’re lucky.
5. Join question and answer community
You can join some of the best questions and answer communities like Quora, it is free…
Write and share your content with other community members who are available online, you can get your content upvoted or receive a bunch of corrections through comments.
Those corrections are not made to discourage you, but to help you improve your writing skills and have a better copy in your next writing.
6. Become a full-time writer
Write every day, write whenever you can…
We have come to a point where the frequency of writing matters in making a better writer. This is one of the exercises to improve writing skills.
Take for example in real-life experience using the car as an example, someone who was an Uber driver 10 years ago and stopped driving a car, can’t really be compared with someone who has been driving from 10 years ago till date.
Practice makes perfect, constant writing introduces the writer to new words and the use of them.
7. Revise and rewrite your draft
A draft can be the skeleton for your work, a preliminary approach to presenting your ideas on the paper.
You need to revisit what you have written earlier to check if you need to do some corrections or even write a new copy instead.
After you are done rewriting your copy, you will notice an improved version of your writing. Sometimes, you get to notice that your best draft becomes better after a short break and refreshment.
8. Find a personal tutor
You can look for a personal English language tutor in your neighborhood or make use of online classes to learn more about how to improve your writing skills.
Your English writing skills will be better improved if you have a native English speaker as your teacher. Your teacher will help you correct grammar, spelling, and style used for a different piece of work.
9. Make use of apps
The technology phase makes it possible to have improved writing skills through the use of desktop/mobile apps. Now there are many Android apps for writing and iOS apps that can improve your writing skills too, you can make use of the smartphone dictionary apps to search for the meaning of words on the go, without internet access.
My favorite writing app for checking grammar and other critical errors is called “Grammarly“. This is an online tool that helps you write a better copy. You can download Grammarly for free and upgrade if need be.
Recap of the best ways to improve your English writing skills:
- Do not hide what you write.
- Develop a good structure for your writing.
- Build your vocabulary and phrases from academic writing
- Work with a professional proofreader
- Join question and answer community
- Become a full-time writer
- Revise and rewrite your draft
- Find a personal tutor
- Make use of apps
The importance of writing skills can never be overemphasized…
Excellent writing skills in English come from constant practice and diligence. No one is born an excellent writer. It takes a lot of time and practice to learn how to write well in English.
However, there are different types of writing skills adapted b different writers, but I’m pretty sure the skills outlined in this post will help you improve your writing skills.