6 Ways to Develop Your Writing Skills as a Student

Jul 08, 2021

Writing is an old, yet essential skill for all students at present. Sometimes, writing skills are even more important compared to verbal skills. This is because, in different fields (study or work), we need to draft a mail or application or write a proposal or dissertation or anything - these activities need excellent writing skills. 

But the fact is the students are more concerned with the verbal skills and they sometimes lack accurate writing skills which often leads to rejection. To develop proper writing skills, it is important for the student to incorporate some habits in their practices. Check these out:

Read More 

Reading increases the stock of vocabulary among the students and a rich vocabulary is a need of the time. To improve verbal as well as writing skills, vocabulary is the most important factor. So, keep reading - read books (academic or story ones), newspapers, magazines, journals, blogs, and anything to read. Reading will not only improve the vocabulary of the students but the reading materials will also show the students how things are written. This will work as a guide to the students at the time of writing. 

Be Clear With Your Message 

Writing

At the time of writing, students generally come to the main point after writing unnecessary things. This is a wring habit and this is the main reason why the students get low marks in writing. 

No matter what you are writing, be it a mail or an application or an answer or anything, stick to the main points. Also, it is a good practice to start the price of writing with specific details. For this, the candidates can outline the main points before they start writing. Writing unnecessary things makes the note generic and this writing fails to grab the attention of the reader. Outlining will help the students to reduce unnecessary words. 

Figure out Reader’s Perspective 

A piece of writing is meant for a reader - be it a story or academic book or an exam paper or a magazine or a news report or research paper or a blog, everything has a specific reader. So, whenever, you are writing something, consider the readers’ perspective. 

For example, you are writing an application to the HOD or Principal of your institute. This application should have less generic details. Instead, this application has to focus on your exact message from the very beginning. This is because no one even you will like to read generic and unnecessary details. You have to think of the needs of a reader to write specific notes and messages for the reader. So, consider yourself as a reader while you are about to write something. 

Maintain Basic Rules of Language 

Grammar

At the time of writing, the students have to follow the basic language rules like:

  • Keeping sentences grammatically correct
  • Writing correct spelling
  • Construct the sentences properly
  • Keep the paragraphs interrelated 
  • Choose simple and common words over the complicated ones

Along with these basic rules, the candidates need to follow some advanced and unwritten rules to make the piece more appealing. Consider the following for this purpose:

  • Choose simple sentences over complex ones
  • Try to keep an individual tense throughout
  • Use more active voice than passive ones
  • Make short and crisp paragraphs
  • Use relative clauses, cause and effect sentences, and conjunctions to keep things linked 

These rules will help the students a lot to write impressively. 

Edit your Writing 

Once you are done with writing, don’t forget to edit your writing. Students often are in a hurry of submitting what they have written. This is nonetheless a wrong habit. Something that is written for the first time is like a raft and it will contain several mistakes. 

Therefore, there is a need for a thorough edit. Until the writing is edited and proofread properly, the writing will remain faulty. At the time of reading the piece, students can find a number of mistakes like spelling mistakes, sentence construction errors, grammatical mistakes, and much more. Plus, the candidates may find some sentences unsuitable. Edit will make the document or the piece of writing close to perfect and flawless. As a result, this writing will obtain a better score. 

Write Daily

writing

Another reason for imperfect writing is a lack of practice. It is mentioned earlier that the students are much more concerned with their verbal skills. So they write less and their writing skills remain amateurish. 

To avoid such a case, the students need to include writing in their daily routine. They have to write something each day - be it formal writing or informal, academic or non-academic - writing is must in daily routine. Remember, perfection is achieved only and only with daily practice. So practice writing. 

To get more tips to develop writing skills, students can get English tutor or language tutor from MyPrivateTutor. These tutors will not only guide the students to develop their writing skills, but they will also provide feedback on students’ writing for making it better. 

Rachita

Rachita is a content writer for MyPrivateTutor Malaysia with 5+ years of hands-on experience. Apart from writing content, she is a music lover and an amateur guitarist who is always trying for bettering her skills from online lessons. In terms of music, she is so old-school that she listens to Linkin Park and Backstreet Boys on the loop till date. 

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