How To Write Effectively

Everyone knows this; first impressions are important. This is one of the best reasons to sharpen your writing skills. Written communication is a very important part of interacting with other people. Writing well entails knowing the workings of English grammar, punctuation and usage and also the fine shades of meaning which can be drawn using the language.

You will be using your writing skills to make first impressions for the rest of your life, from simple e-mail correspondences to letters and business proposals and documents. You wouldn’t write out your resume in SMS text abbreviations.

There are all proven techniques to assist you in writing well and making yourself understood.

1) Always know your audience. You should remember that your audience has (or lacks) certain knowledge about the topic, so don’t cover ground like defining different types of flour if your audience is pastry chefs. If you are writing something more technical, for instance instructional materials, then by all means to start from the basics and work your way up. 2) Remember what you were taught in high school. Start your piece from a theme and know your ending before you begin. Once you know that, just start getting it down on the page - you can go back and rewrite your piece afterwards. Always start your piece with the most important point you have to make. 3) When rewriting, don’t be afraid to throw away quite a lot of the original piece, even if it’s the first several hundred words. Many writers are just warming up for the first paragraphs, so this is the part of your piece generally in the greatest need of rewriting.

Habits to avoid:

After you’ve written your piece, do a find and replace for *ly (this is a wild card character and “ly”), replacing it with a word that should never appear in your essay. I recommend using rutabaga. Read through your piece and anywhere you find a rutabaga, cross it out. If the sentence reads as well without it, leave it crossed out. Otherwise, replace it with the appropriate adjective.

When possible, always write in the active voice. Remember, show; don’t tell. For example: “Brooke ran from her pursuers as fast as she could, her heart racing, as her mind sought any means to evade capture.” This is the active voice. And: “Running, Brooke’s heart raced as she attempted to evade her pursuers.” That would be the passive voice - active definitely reads better and is more likely to attract and retain the attention of your reader.

Read your piece out loud to yourself. This is the very best way to identify a poorly cast sentence out of your piece. You’ll be able to hear your words in your head as you write with enough practice; this will greatly improve your writing.

Writing well is a sadly neglected skill. It is hardly taught anymore, but all of the tips given here used to be commonplace instruction taught beginning in junior high, where they belong - rather than in college courses where they are encountered now.