Improve Your Writing Skills Dramatically by Doing These Seven Things

It's one thing being able to speak well in English but writing for most non-native speakers is likely to give them nightmares! Most students struggle because most English courses don't pay enough attention to it. They are too focused on speaking skills.

So, what can you do to improve your writing skills?

The good news is that by following some basic rules, you can improve your written English quickly.

Read on to pick up some easy to apply tips and start improving your writing skills today.

Write more often.

If you want to improve in something, you will need to practice – and writing is no exception to this rule.

To improve your writing skills, write more regularly, and this will reduce your fear of the blank page, and it will also help you develop a unique style. Even if nobody is going to read something you write, keep writing anyway. Practice will improve your writing.

Read as well as write.

Good writers also tend to read a lot, and regular reading is an easy way to start developing your writing skills. For example, reading more challenging material than you typically read will often focus on sentence structure and word choice.

Get some feedback.

Writing is typically a solo activity. However, good writers always spare the time to get critical feedback on their work. Ask your colleagues or friends to look at your work – they will often spot mistakes you overlooked.

Take classes.

Find the right school of English, such as BBLC, and take some writing classes with a professional English teacher.

Improve your vocabulary.

Do the words that you use to say what you want to say? You can always find another more specific term. Think more carefully about your choice of vocabulary and always use a thesaurus. A thesaurus is a book like a dictionary, except that it lists words that are synonyms or close to synonyms.

Think before you write.

Before you write, it is a good idea to make a plan. Think about the best way to arrange your thoughts so they will be easy to follow? Which examples and evidence can you give to support each of your points? Before you write, outline, and make space for examples after each point or argument. One right way to do this is to use a mind map.

Writing and speaking are different.

Writing is a different form of communication to speech. For example, it is impossible to watch your face or how you move your hands or hear your tone of voice, word stress, or speech rhythms. Face to face communication is much more than the actual words and word order.

When writing, you need to make your message clear the first time because your readers do not face to face with you. However, writing does have some advantages. Writers have time to think about and organize their thoughts (see number 6). Therefore, for example, use good punctuation such as commas and full stops to improve the timing of how your audience will read your writing.

Paragraphs are essential and show transitions to new ideas. They also break up the text, which makes a longer passage easier to read.

For more tips and strategies for improving your written communication, get in touch with us today.

+7 495 626 0473/0376

Robert Saunders is the Director of studies of BBLC and has 20 years' experience teaching some of the biggest multinational companies around the globe.