How to Improve Your Writing

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  • Knowing how to write well is not only a skill for aspiring novelists—it's essential to the impression you make on others, especially in the Internet age. This page provides a simple, step-by-step guide on how to improve your writing.

  • Introduction

    • Improving your writing ability can make a greater difference in your life than you may think possible. No matter what your occupation, good writing gives you a distinct edge in the workplace—it can allow you to express yourself more clearly and persuasively, and lead to raises and promotions. When it's time to move on, your way with words will make your resume, cover letter and interview all the more impressive.
    • Perhaps most importantly, writing is a skill that can improve your verbal skill, which is crucial in nearly every human interaction.

  • Step 1: Read

    1. Try reading newspapers, magazines, novels, poems, short stories, plays—anything you can get your hands on.
      • If you get your reading material from a broad variety of sources, you'll become acquainted with different writing styles, or "voices."
    2. However, you may reap the most benefit by immersing yourself in the work of writers whom you admire and enjoy.
      • The more you read, the better your writing will become—particularly if you read good writing!
    3. As you read, remain thoughtful and critical, asking yourself what it is you like about the author's writing, what you don't like and whether or not you agree with author's perspective.

  • Step 2: Know the Rules

    • The better you know the basic foundations of writing, the more readable your text will become. It will also make the writing process more enjoyable. Make an effort to learn the rules of the English language so well that they eventually become second nature.
    1. Buy some grammar, punctuation and spelling work guides.
    2. You can also find help on the Internet, through online dictionaries and grammar sites such as these.
    3. One particularly fun online resource is The Grammar Vandal. The blog's writer, Kate McCulley, is a Sharpie-wielding grammar aficionado, who corrects bad grammar wherever she finds it.
    • Below are two of the most common errors:

  • Run-on sentences

    2. Run-on sentences occur when two independent clauses either have no punctuation between them, or are connected by a comma (the latter is also called a "comma splice").
    3. Example: Eric got tired of his striped shirt he sold it on eBay.
    4. One way to correct this sentence is to use a period to separate the clauses: Eric got tired of his striped shirt. He sold it on eBay.
    5. Otherwise, you can use a semicolon to separate them: Eric got tired of his striped shirt; he sold it on eBay.
    6. Alternately, you could correct the sentence by adding a conjunction, such as "so." Eric got tired of his striped shirt, so he sold it on eBay.

  • Who vs. Whom

    • Even experienced writers will occasionally confuse "who" and "whom." Distinguishing between the two, however, is simple—and a handy shortcut makes it easier yet.
    1. "Who" is used as a sentence's subject, just like "he," "she," "we" and "they."
    2. For example, in the film Jerry Maguire, when the protagonist gets fired, he asks his co-workers, "Who's coming with me?"
      • In that sentence, "who" is the subject ("who's" is a contraction of "who is").
      • If Jerry Maguire were to say, "Whom is coming with me," he would be ungrammatical, as well as fired.
    3. "Whom" is used as the object of a sentence, just like "him," "her," "us" and "them."
      • For example, "This is the candidate whom we are going to elect."
      • In the sentence above, "whom" is the object, while "we" is the subject.
    4. Here's the shortcut: When you're trying to decide between "who" and "whom," just test the sentence by plugging in "he" or "him," and seeing which sounds grammatically correct.
      • If "he" sounds best, use "who."
      • If "him" sounds best, use "whom."
      • Example: "I want to know [who/whom] did this." In this case, "He did this," clearly sounds better than "Him did this"—so the answer is "I want to know who did this."
      • Here's another: "[Who/whom] should I ask about this?" You would "ask him," not "ask he"—so the answer is "Whom should I ask about this?"

  • Step 3: Prepare

    • Before you get out the pen (or laptop), a few quick considerations can smooth out the writing process.

  • Eliminate distractions

    1. Before you sit down to write, get rid of anything that will cause you to lose your focus.
    2. Turn off the TV, iPod, cell phone, etc. It's hard enough to sit down and write without these distractions.
    3. If you find that you still can't hear yourself think, see Mahalo's guide to How to Beat Writer's Block.

  • Know your audience

    1. Identifying your audience will help you to develop the paper's tone and how its ideas will be presented.
    2. In the planning and research stages of your writing project, think about who will be reading the finished product.
    3. You wouldn't write a cover letter the same way you would a letter to a friend, would you?

  • Determine the thesis

    1. Before you start writing, identify the single idea that you're trying to get across.
    2. Boil it down to a sentence or two: this is called a thesis statement.
    3. A particular piece of writing should only contain passages that support its thesis in some way.
      • Naturally, nothing should be included that contradicts the thesis.
    4. Sticking to the thesis will keep you from straying from the topic.

  • Make an outline

    1. An outline is a diagram of what you plan to write.
    2. It can be indispensable for organizing your thoughts before you begin writing.
    3. It charts your paper's introduction, body and conclusion.
    4. See an example of outline format at English Works.

  • Step 4: Keep It Simple

    • If you hope to hold the reader's focus, you're writing should be direct, crisp and concise.

  • Clear Language

    1. Use plain, accessible language whenever possible.
    2. Showy, "big" words don't necessarily make you seem smart (particularly if they're used out of context).
    3. Your job as a writer isn't to convince readers that you are sophisticated—it's to make them understand whatever it is you're trying to say.
    4. Newspaper articles are excellent examples of clear, unfussy writing.

  • Shorter is Better

    1. Use short sentences and paragraphs.
    2. Sentences don't have to be run-ons to be too long; some perfectly grammatical sentences are simply too long for most readers to follow.
    3. Shorter paragraphs are more visually pleasing to the reader, making the text easier to scan.
    4. Perhaps more importantly, readers don't like to wade through an ocean of text to get to the point.

  • Avoid wordiness

    1. Writers who are uncertain of their subject often overcompensate by writing too much.
    2. If you are not confident about your subject, perhaps you need to do more research before sitting down to write.
    3. Wordiness in writing also stems from attempts to impress the reader by sounding intelligent. More often, it just sounds long-winded and dull.

  • Step 5: Use Active Voice

    • Writing in active voice, rather than passive voice adds force and clarity to your work. Active voice means that the subject of the sentence performs the action specified by the verb, rather than the subject being acted upon.
    1. Here is an example of a sentence written in active voice: "The truck hit the pole."
      • The subject is "the truck," "hit" is the verb and "the pole" is the object—the truck acts upon the pole.
    2. Here's the same sentence, written in passive voice: "The pole was hit by the truck."
      • In this construction, the pole is the subject—and it's a passive subject, being acted upon.
    3. Passive voice is often used by people who are trying to dodge responsibility—for instance, politicians and young children.
      • Here is an example of a passive sentence that leaves the cause of the action vague (perhaps deliberately): "The vase was broken."
      • Here's the active version: "I broke the vase." The active version assumes responsibility.
    4. There are occasions when passive voice should be used, particularly when the object of the verb is more important than the subject.
      • For example, here's a sentence written in active voice that lends undue attention to the subject: "People can see Mount Sinai from the roof."
      • Changed to the passive voice, this sentence places emphasis where it belongs: "Mount Sinai can be seen from the roof."

  • Step 6: Use Strong Verbs

    • Using strong, active verbs will make your writing more dynamic and provocative.
    1. Here is an example of a sentence that uses a strong, active verb: "She devoured the stew." This reads better than the following sentence: "The stew was eaten hungrily."
    2. In the above example, the second sentence sounds dull compared to the first. This is due to three factors:
      • It's written in passive voice.
      • It uses the weak verb "eat."
      • It adds the adverb "hungrily," though a more expressive verb would be more effective.
    3. Here are two more examples of sentences that contain potent verbs:
      • "The writer soared to prominence after his appearance on Oprah."
      • "Her lengthy keynote speech tranquilized the audience."
    4. Keep a thesaurus and dictionary close at hand and you'll always have a variety of strong verbs to choose from.
    5. You should also bookmark links to some good online dictionaries and thesauri.

  • Step 7: Avoid Redundancy and Repetition

    • Using the same word unnecessarily in a sentence is a sign of carelessness, or even worse, laziness. Reread your sentences to check if there are any unnecessary repeated words. If there are, eliminate them.

    1. In some cases, you may need to pare the sentence down.
      • For example, "We went to Manhattan, the main borough of New York City, and later went to the other boroughs of New York City—Brooklyn, Staten Island, Queens and the Bronx."
      • This could be reduced to: "We went to the main borough of New York City, Manhattan, and later toured the others."
    2. In other instances, it may just be a matter of replacing a proper noun with a pronoun, e.g., using "he" instead of "John."
    3. Sometimes, you may need to search for an alternative. Consult a thesaurus to find substitutes for repeated words.
    4. If you settle on a word that's new to you, make sure you're using it in the right context.
    5. Also watch out for repetition in phrases.
      • For example, the repeated use of these phrases can clutter your writing: "as well as," "the fact that" and "which range from [blank] to [blank]."

  • Step 8: Make Your Writing Flow

    • Good writing flows like a good conversation. That's not to say it should be informal, but that it moves smoothly from one thought to another and doesn't have a tone of extreme formality.

  • Use transitions

    1. Transitional words and phrases connect sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph.
    2. They're often used at the beginning of a sentence to suggest continuity.
    3. Common ones include "therefore," "namely" and "of course."
    4. See Writer's Web's guide to transitional words and phrases.

  • Vary sentence structure

    • It's easy to forget sentence structure when you're focusing on the content. One key to "loosening up" your text is to use a variety of structures.
    1. Here's an example of repeated use of the same structure:
      • Despite being an aggressive politician, President Johnson decided not to run for re-election. Even though he might have won, he chose to retire to his ranch in Stonewall, Texas, instead.
    2. Here's a revision with varied sentence structures:
      • Johnson may well have won in 1968. But despite his reputation as an aggressive politician, he chose his Stonewall, Texas, ranch over the White House. He would not to run for re-election.

  • Step 9: Write Vividly

    • Show, don't tell. This is a mantra of journalists and creative writers, but it can also be of great benefit for writing essays, speeches, blog posts and even instruction manuals. Showing invites the reader into a full sensory experience, transporting him or her from the page to the imagination.
    • The following examples demonstrate how much more effective it can be to show:
    • Telling: "The kitten was under the tree. It missed its mother."
    • Showing: "The mottled kitten clung to the roots of the old birch as if to its mother's bosom."
    • Telling: "The suitcase closed on his fingers and injured him."
    • Showing: "The steel rim of the suitcase flashed as it fell, crushing his fingertips."
    • Telling: "It was simultaneously sunny and cold."
    • Showing: "The bright sky grinned, but the chill wind bit."

  • Step 10: Avoid Clichés

    • Using clichés, overused metaphors and familiar phrases reveals a lack of creativity. Try to think of something more inspired to put in their place.
    • Beware of these:
      • Actions speak louder than words.
      • That's water under the bridge.
      • Stop and smell the roses.
      • The lion's share.
      • Thinking outside of the box.
      • You're walking on thin ice.
      • It's raining cats and dogs.
    • If you're unsure if a particular phrase has been worn out, look it up on ClichéSite.com.

  • Step 11: Review and Revise

    • Reviewing and revising are as essential to the writing process as writing itself. Here are some things to keep in mind.

  • Come back to it later

    1. When you feel you have a solid draft, it's a good idea to take a breather. Time permitting, wait until the next day before you start making revisions.
    2. It's wise to revisit your work with fresh eyes. You'll be surprised at some of the awkward passages and errors that you didn't catch the first time around.
    3. On the other hand, you will be equally surprised at how well other passages have come out.

  • Be hard on yourself

    • Print out your work and closely examine each sentence and paragraph; then put a circle around all the passages that sound uninspired, dull, awkward or just plain bad. It's a good idea to follow a revision checklist when going over your work:
    1. The writing should flow, with graceful transitions and varied sentence structures.
    2. The piece should be balanced, with a beginning, middle and end.
    3. Your work should not have unnecessary repetitions of words or phrases.

  • Read it out loud

    • Reading out loud is an excellent method for spotting choppy transitions, awkward phrases, or repetitious sentence structure.
      • Listen to see if what you have written has a rhythm to it. The best writing has a sense of rhythm—and it's easier to get a feel for its rhythm when reading it aloud.

  • Have someone else read it

    • Solicit feedback from someone who isn't your mother or best friend—in other words, someone inclined to be honest—and ask them to be brutally honest.
    1. Ideal candidates include co-workers and supervisors. Choose someone with more of a stake in the quality of your work than the quality of your relationship with them.
    2. Even constructive criticism can feel painful at first. Unless you're dealing with outright rudeness, be polite.
    3. Thoughtfully evaluate whether or not the criticism is valid. Put it to use and see if the piece improves. If not, simply change it back—people haven't written in stone for thousands of years!

  • Proofread your work

    • Don't proofread until all of your revisions have been completed—proofreading and revision are two different things.
    1. Proofreading involves mainly spelling and grammar, rather than the deeper issues of structure and content that revision entails.
    2. Don't rely on spell check, which in most cases will only catch incorrect spelling, not incorrect context.
    3. Look out for homophones. Homophones are words that sound the same but have different meanings and often different spellings.
      • Some common homophones are
        1. their (possessive), there (location), and they're (contraction of they are)
        2. it's (contraction of it is) and its (possessive)
        3. your (possessive) and you're (contraction of you are)
        4. to (directional), two (number), and too (also)
      • One particularly confusing set of homophones is "effect" and "affect." Just remember that, in most cases, "affect" is a verb and "effect" is a noun. For example, "That's a neat special effect," or "The movie really affected me." For the rare exceptions to this rule, see Grammarmudge's Affect/Effect page.
    4. Spot misused words: When writing, we sometimes use words that we haven't yet mastered. When proofreading, it's crucial to note any words that you might have used out of context, look them up and make necessary corrections.

  • Step 12: Write Whenever You Can

    • The more you write, the more you'll notice subtle improvements in your work. Eventually, you'll develop your own unique style of writing, known as your voice. In the meantime, don't give up. Writing well is not easy. It takes patience, tenacity and passion, but the rewards are worth the effort.

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