How to improve your writing skills

Remember the day when you readan imperfect and substandard piece of writing and just couldn’t figure out anything in the copy. Simply, because the spellings were incorrect, grammar was horrible and punctuation marks were jumping around on the page aimlessly. Remember how annoyed and exasperated you felt after reading such a copy. And I am sure that, this is the reason why you are here – you don’t want your readers to go through the same trauma.

The universal key to improve English writing skills is quite simple- read a lot, keep writing and love what you write. But still there are quite a few things that must be kept in mind while writing, in order to make your piece of writing better, each time you write. So here are some ready to use tips for you that will surely help you improve your writing skills:

• First and foremost thing: Read a lot. Reading good novels, magazines, newspapers, will naturally increase your vocabulary and develop your writing skills. Also reading a variety of books,of different genreswill not only expand your vista of knowledge but will also help you learn different forms and styles of writing. This in turn, will result in versatility in your writing.
• Know your grammar well. A piece of writing without right grammar is like coffee without sugar. Learn and use appropriate figures of speech, right punctuation marks at accurate places, correct nouns, verbs, tenses,etc. and most important of all- always spell-check your write-up. The meaning of the write-up changes drastically with wrong use of punctuation and grammar.
• Before writing, know your audience. Depending upon the kind of audience your ‘writing voice’ or writing format will be decided. This will define your writing style(casual, funky, formal or creative).
• Make sure that the main concept or theme of the write up is clear in your mind before you start writing. Jot down important points that come to your mind on a piece of rough paper for your reference.
• The main aim of a writer is always to deliver the message he wants to convey to his readers, in true sense, through his writing.To achieve this, confirm that you don’t divert from the main theme. Keep your write up short, crisp, precise and up to the point.
• Assure that you give a very catch introduction that grabs the attention of the audience.  The introduction should establish an image of the main theme or idea in readers mind, to give him a general overview about the topic.
• Never assume that your audience is God. Include all necessary details in your write up that any reader new to that subject would need in order to understand the write-up.
• Enhance your write-up by embracing quotes, facts, figures, and statistics into it, to prove your ideas or opinions.
• Your write-up should be as user friendly as possible. Structure your document in a way that it attracts the reader to read it, just by looking at its personality. So, include headings, sub headings, bullet points and short paragraphs as much as possible except if you are writing a novel. Because reader will always prefer reading bullet points or summarised small paragraphs over huge paragraphs.
• Remember, all your readers are not born Shakespeare. So, use simple yet classy and impressive language that appeals to general audience.
• Revise your copy twice to improve it and remove all the clutter. You can also join essay writing classes or writing courses for improving your writing skills.