Be the Best Writer that You Can Be

August 11, 2011 by Leave a Comment

A common trademark among good writers is doing efficient research. Some writers do a lot of research which takes up a lot of time and they may end up using a small fraction of what’s collected. Likewise, another writer may do almost no research and her writing lacks the depth of a well researched article and isn’t an enjoyable read. Research the questions you need to answer but do so efficiently to become a better and more diverse writer.

A good editing job will also help you to become a better writer, such as online paper editing sites. An impartial set of eyes is nice to have and these proofreading and editing duties are well handled by the professionals while you concentrate on other aspects of your paper. This should include double-checking all the facts in your article and omitting anything you can’t verify as fact from at least two sources. The integrity of your written pieces demands that facts are checked for accuracy.

Also, do not limit yourself to a certain time for writing. Instead, e-mail yourself ideas or write them on paper and shove it in your pocket until a time you can work the piece out. Often times, writers will have some great ideas throughout the day and expect to remember them later. Unfortunately, we get busy during the day and can’t always remember these ideas later when we want them. Write yourself little prompts so that you never forget an idea.

Accepting criticism is perhaps the most important aspect to becoming a great writer. There are some fabulous editors out there who can help you to get the most from your ideas. Instead of getting frustrated at editor suggestions, embrace them and see if they bring out the best in your written work.

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Writing: The Importance of Second Opinions

August 9, 2011 by Leave a Comment
JERUSALEM - MARCH 09: A detail from Albert Ei...
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You are – in your most humble opinion – brilliant. Your writing reflects a superior collection of thoughts and theories, the academic wonders that are certain to be recognized by all. You are daring with your dissections of history and philosophy, able to conjure intrigue from dull statistics. Your papers are experiences, not mere pages. Words are your carefully chosen allies, meant to sway others and prove genius.

That genius means little, however, when it’s revealed that you left a substantial amount of grammatical errors and spelling mistakes in your work. This was an unfortunate and avoidable consequence.

Your inspiration cannot be denied; but it can be tamed. Your papers are praised for their inventiveness but their grades still reflect the all too easy flaws – a confusion of words, improper substitutions and poorly constructed contractions. Your cleverness cannot be questioned. Your basic language skills, however, can.

And this is why it becomes so vital for you to seek the aid of others. Don’t assume your research will compensate for weak writing. You can’t rely on a perfect theory to make readers forget the imperfect presentation. You must instead find an editor – an individual who can decipher your meanings and shape them accurately. You can go to 411.ca and search for the kind of service that you need to make your life easier.

You worry, though, that this will be impossible: your papers are complex affairs, able to be understood only by those who are as familiar with the topics as you are. This is rarely a concern, however. Unless your research is filled to technical explanations, there should be no difficulty in pointing out the problems. Language is the purpose, not what it is trying to prove.

Academia is not meant to be solitary. Just as you rely on others to for theories and experimentations, you must also rely on them to offer advice. Your work cannot suffer from improper writing. It must instead be edited. Look to those who will not simply praise your ideas but will instead make them fully logical.

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How to Become a Better Writer

July 3, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Testtakingstudent

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Most of us understand the importance of writing well. It can affect our jobs and careers, as well as how other people perceive us. Good writing reflects a positive light on those who are able to communicate well in written form.

So how do you go about becoming a better writer? Here are a few basic tips that can help you improve your writing skills.

Take a class. There are many opportunities to take writing classes of any level. You can start with a basic writing class or even a creative writing class. Check out your local area offerings by using a search engine, such as Canada 411. In addition, many universities and colleges offer classes on a not-for-credit basis as adult or continuing education classes.

Join a writing group. Do some research or ask your friends if they know of any local writing groups. These groups are a great way to get feedback and input about your writing. You can often find groups that focus on a specific type of writing such as fiction, non-fiction, movie scripts and so on.

Read as much as you can. Find well written books on topics that you like. Examine the writing and language in those books or publications. Become more critical of what you are reading. Examine sentence structure and word usage to see if you could make improvements.

Use reference materials while you are writing. Use a dictionary, a thesaurus, and other such materials when you write.

Finally, just write. Write as much as you can every day, and soon you’ll see your writing improve.

Filed Under: Academic writing, Writing Tagged With: , ,

Writing Tips: Ways to Brainstorm for Topics

March 28, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Whether you are writing a news article, piece of fiction or short story you will need to have a topic and an idea of where you wish to take your writing. Brainstorming is a great way to come up with a number of topics and directions that you can take that topic. Here is a look at some of the ways people brainstorm for their writing topics.

Random Listing. Random listing can work when trying to narrow down or find a topic. To brainstorm by random listing you just grab a piece of paper and start writing down any idea that comes to mind. If an idea comes to your mind you just write it down as a possible topic. It might be hard to not think about the topics that you are writing down but when listing all you want to do is get as many ideas down as possible and then you can sort through them later.

Cluster Brainstorming. Cluster brainstorming is ideal for when you have a topic and want to expand on that topic for a paper or school project. To cluster brainstorm you start with a small topic such as cats and place it in a bubble in the center. You will then branch ideas off of cats such as food, shelter, vet care, toys and other topics. You continue to branch off of each idea until you have multiple ways that you can take the topic you started out with.

Each brainstorming style is unique and can really help to narrow down the topic that you wish to write on or to figure out a direction to take a specific topic.

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Tips for Taking Good Notes During an Interview for a News Article

March 20, 2011 by Leave a Comment

When writing a news story you might get a chance to interview an important person for your news article. Interviews are a great way to add insight into the topic that you are writing about or give the article a personal touch. However, an interview cannot be properly used by the writer if they did not take good notes during the interview. Notes that are taken during the interview are important to the writer because it allows them to have what was exactly said by the interviewee and allows the writer to present accurate facts and quotes.

Here are some tips that will help you take good notes while conducting an interview for a news article.

Learn Short Hand. Try to learn some type of short hand before the interview. You will want to be taking notes while the person is speaking but you will not have the time to write everything out in long hand. Short hand gives you a chance to capture everything without having to write it out by hand.

Write Small. The smaller that you write the more you can fit into one notebook page. Turning the pages of a notebook can take up time and allow you to miss out on important parts of the interview.

Always Ask for Clarification. If you missed something while taking a note ask the interviewee to repeat the answer. A great way to do this is to fault yourself and remind them that you want to accurately quote them in the article.

Ask Technical Questions to Stall. If you are still writing out notes you can always ask a technical question that you know the answer to so that you have time to finish your notes up.

Filed Under: Academic writing, Writing Tagged With: , ,

Tips for Writing News Article Content in APA Style

February 16, 2011 by Leave a Comment

One of the most common styles of writing for news writing is the American Psychological Association format, or the APA format. Almost all news articles are written using the APA style. This common style of writing makes it easier for editors to present a newspaper that has consistency even though it was written by various writers. Here is a guideline on how to make sure that your article follows the APA style format for the content that is written.

Create a Hook. All APA style news articles have some type of hook or lead. This is usually one or two sentences that will automatically grab any reader into the story that is written. Hooks need to be intriguing and force the reader to want to read the rest of the article.

Answer All Questions. The content of an APA style news article must answer all the questions that a reader might have. These questions include the whos, whats, wheres, whens, whys and hows of the topic. While you don’t need to go into great detail you need to give the reader enough information that they know what you are talking about and feel comfortable with the topic at hand.

Remain Objective. Almost all news articles that are written in APA style require that the writer remain objective on the topic that is being presented. It is important to think of the writer as a vessel for information and all that you are doing is writing it down and presenting it to the readers.

Write to the Audience. APA style articles require that a writer write in an active voice. This will allow the readers to feel as if they are a part of the article and not left out. You will also want to try to avoid slang words or jargon as it can be confusing to the readers and you want to appeal to a wide audience base.

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Ideas to Defeat Writers Block

January 22, 2011 by Leave a Comment

A blank page can not only be very disturbing, but also very uninspiring. Instead of letting the blankness of the page intimidate you, opt for the attitude found in the Tao’s un-carved block. The sky is the limit to the creativity you can put on a blank page. It has no boundaries except for that which you give it. Many people have their own methods for defeating writers block, but here are some ideas if your methods fail you. Hopefully, you haven’t tried all these yet.

Just Write

Some people get started by just writing whatever pops in their mind. It helps to play some instrumental rap music to get some rhythm going as that’s how rap artists free flow, but if you are writing prose, you may find yourself writing in rhyme by accident. Your first statements might be things like, “blue, fly, annoying you know what annoys me is when the husband…” Eventually, you will start making some sense, hopefully, and you can run with an idea from that.

Assign Yourself an Exercise

You can search online for different exercises writers often assign themselves such as different forms of poetry, writing in a certain style, or adding to a famous quote.

Google

Sometimes the mind just goes blank on what to write about, and if you have a broad topic in mind, enter that or any specific topic that falls under that for which you don’t want to write about, and browse the web for inspiration. Sometimes, you can find inspiration in images, links, advertisements, etc.

Outline

Sometimes you know the narrowed topic which you want to write about, but you just don’t know where to start. This is where an outline might come in handy. Create headings for Beginning, Middle, and End, and outline what material you want (and expect). It helps to think from the view point of the finished product first and then work backwards.

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It’s Hard to Say Goodbye

December 12, 2010 by Leave a Comment

As the writer in the family I am always given the “honor” of writing speeches for weddings, birthdays etc. I always wish everyone a happy birthday and send out all the baby congratualtions. I gladly accept the challenge of writing these things. I mean who amongst us isn’t up for a little challenge once in a while. Unfortunately, this means that I am also given the task of writing condolence cards. I never relish this onerous task.

I mean, how many ways are there really to say “I’m Sorry”. After you’ve actually said “I’m Sorry” it feels like there’s nothing else left to say. If the deceased was old or sick do you tell the loved ones that you’re glad the deceased is in a better place? What if the family doesn’t believe in heaven? They won’t get any consolation knowing that their loved on is in “a better place”. What if the person was a scoundrel and probably ended up in Hell? You can’t very well say, “All’s well that ends well”. It’s even worse if the person who died was young, or if the death happened suddenly. There are no words for that, so what do you write on the card?

In the past, I have resorted to quoting poetry. I love poetry, but most people think that poetry sounds hokey. Even I can admit that poems written about the dead are depressing. Wouldn’t people rather be cheered up? Isn’t death depressing enough without adding a poetic ballad into the mix? And if the poem is long, do people even bother reading it? What’s the point in scouring the internet for just the right poem if no one is even going to read it? As unoriginal as it may sound, I think that I’m going to stick with the tried and true “I’m Sorry.”

Filed Under: Academic writing, Writing Tagged With: , , ,

Instructions Not Included

December 11, 2010 by Leave a Comment

As my husband and I are slowly assembling all of our childrens’ Christmas gifts we’ve consistently noticed one thing. The people who wrote these assembly instructions don’t know how to write. They are all supposedly written in English, yet they don’t really make much sense. As an English teacher, I have read some bizarre things and managed to make light of it but the people who write these directions have much poorer writing skills than my students. That’s saying a lot by the way.

Worse yet, not all toys come with written instructions. Case in point, my husband and I bought our five year old the WWE Money in the Bank Ring. It did not come with any written instructions. All of the instructions were pictures. Neither my husband nor I could put it together. Luckily, our eleven year old son was able to figure it out.

The instructions for setting up the Nook I received for Hannukah were even worse. I had to go to the store and have them set it up for me. This is especially upsetting because Barnes and Noble is in the literacy business. Thank God I didn’t get a Kindle instead. Then I would have to mail it back to Amazon and receive answers to my questions via e-mail or instant message. I’ve never met anyone who’s spoken to a live person over at Amazon.

Are poor written directions just another symptom of the poor literacy skills of Americans or are companies even outsourcing the writing of directions to countries where the labor is cheaper? I am all for companies doing what they need to do to save money. Lord knows I don’t want to pay any more for these products than I already pay. But at what cost? A lower cost does not always translate into a better value.

Filed Under: Academic writing, Writing Tagged With: , ,

Forced Genius: Writing

November 26, 2010 by Leave a Comment
Rachel in the library
Image by inkberrypix via Flickr

It’s the most tragic of diseases, an infection that plagues the mind – you stare at a blank screen, with its infinite possibilities, the documents waiting to be formed. It should be such an easy thing to create prose, to turn nonsense into fact; and yet you can think of nothing to offer. There are no words that seem admirable. There are no ideas that seem worthy. All thoughts instead shape themselves into fickle creatures, unwilling to reveal themselves to you or your deadlines. You… have writer’s block.

And this was always assumed to be a myth. You’ve never struggled with sentences before. You believed such a thing could never occur – but it has. And you are left now with nothing but the looming hours, the assignments meant to fill them.

This an common complication, experienced by most would be writers within their scholastic careers. The mind betrays all intentions, leaving an individual helpless to craft the needed pages. And the temptation is to simply walk away – to leave all work behind and replace it with easier pastimes. There can be no gain, after all, in tapping out occasional ideas, dull words.

This is not true.

The only way to cure the dreaded writer’s block is to refuse to accept it. Whether you are trying to create fantastical worlds or are proving theories with research papers, you must continue to type; even when all efforts are clumsy. Force yourself to attempt a sentence. When that is finally completed, try to conquer the concept of a paragraph. The process will be undeniably tedious but it will still offer the reward of progress: you will have pages to show. This is important (not only for your deadline but for your own certainty).

Inspiration is too often confused to a swift thing, formed only under the ideal circumstances. It can, however, be instead the effect of slow rhythms and patience. Write and do not stop.

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