While students learn, they face various hardships. One of them is the issue of writing essays in English. Many students simply have too weak writing skills. As a result, their texts are hard to read, contain many logical, structural, and grammatical errors. It leads to a loss of many grades, and so decreases their average scores. Therefore, essay writing skills must be improved somehow.
Lauren Bradshaw is a successful blogger and freelance essay writer from a professional writing company CustomWritings.com. She writes many useful blogs for students, and her ideas are very effective. We’d like to share one of her brilliant opinions with you: “If your writing skills are weak, you should never stop. It does not mean you have lost. You can be victorious by trying various writing methods and techniques. Fortunately, we know many of them, and every student can become a great writer.” We agree to this and offer our informative guide. It provides useful tips that help to boost essay writing skills in English.
Read a Lot
One of the most effective tips to improve essay writing skills in English is to read as much as you can. We mean all types of literature. Do not limit your knowledge by reading only learning tutorials and guides. You are welcome to read fiction books, novels, detective stories, and so on. By reading various authors, you enrich your knowledge and develop writing skills. Do not be shy to use their strategies and literary means.
Thanks to the Internet, students can find multiple useful materials that can boost their essay writing skills in English. They can be:
- Learning guides and tutorials;
- Textbooks;
- Various genres of literature;
- Scientific articles;
- Samples that are written by professional writers;
- Educational blog posts, etc.
Write Regularly
Undoubtedly, you should work out your writing skills regularly. This method may be compared to the way people work in the gym. They do regular workouts to become physically strong and endure long. The same method should be applied to your writing skills. If you do it regularly, they become “stronger.”
Develop a habit of writing every day for at least 2-3 hours. Cover various topics to be experienced in as many questions as possible. It’s also vital to change the academic papers you write. For example, you may write a narrative essay on Monday, a comprehensive essay on Tuesday, a lab report on Wednesday, and so on. It helps to become an expert in all possible academic papers.
Define All Demands and Make an Outline
Many students fail because they do not understand everything they are supposed to do. They are inattentive or just do not read their instructions. Do not repeat this common mistake. ALWAYS read the instructions before you begin to write. If you don’t understand something, consult your teacher. Believe us! You will surely avoid a lot of potential mistakes.
Practice Free-Writing
We highly recommend trying free-writing. It is one of the most popular and effective writing techniques. Its principle is very simple. You should choose a random topic about anything you want and write on it for 15-20 consecutive minutes. Do not make any breaks. Pour down on the paper everything that occurs to the mind. Afterward, reread it to check how much has been written and how logical the story is.
Additional tip: If you don’t like the results, rewrite it in another set. Repeat this technique regularly to sharpen your skills. It helps to quickly overcome many problems with writing.
Manage Your Time Reasonably
Time means a lot to the quality of your writing skills. If you are in a big hurry, you are not careful enough. You risk missing some mistakes. Therefore, optimize your schedule to always have enough time for all academic tasks. Here are a few prompts for you:
- Appoint short- and long-term goals;
- Take into account academic and non-academic tasks;
- Be systematic and disciplined;
- Prioritize your goals;
- Set realistic deadlines and follow them strictly;
- Use a digital organizer to simplify the control of your routine;
- Define what tools and methods suit you best.
Implement Technology
Remember that technology may become your most effective learning assistant. You can apply various learning apps that help to boost writing skills, grammar, time management, editing skills, etc. The most popular learning apps among students are:
- Grammar checkers;
- Topic generators;
- Editors;
- Organizers;
- Spell-checkers;
- Citation generators;
- Online vocabularies;
- Plagiarism checkers, etc.
Try various apps to define their main functions and the way they can be useful for your academic writing.
Keep It Short and Logical
Many students repeat one typical mistake – they write too long sentences and paragraphs. It’s very hard to read and comprehend such texts. Therefore, always break long sentences into smaller chunks. Review your paragraphs and decide which ones can be split into smaller ones.
Additional tip: Prefer an active voice because passive constructions require more words.
Get Rid of Watery Sentences
Another typical mistake you should get rid of is writing unnecessary words and sentences. Do not repeat yourself, and do not write sentences that have little or no relation to the topic. Some students “manage” to write entire paragraphs with little sense. It’s a huge mistake, which will take away many crucial grades. You should also get rid of:
- Repetitions;
- Slang;
- Jargon;
- Technical terms;
- Clichés, etc.
Additional tip: You should expand your active vocabulary to learn more words that can replace repetitions or that can be used to write meaningful sentences.
Summing Up
Even if your essay writing skills in English are not good enough, it’s not a reason to give up. We have described various effective techniques and strategies that really help to improve these vital skills. Moreover, you may carry out research to find out other methods. When you are armed with the right knowledge and are determined to succeed, nothing can stand in your way to success.
