Writing in English is as easy as playing games or watching movies.
There are many names for good writing in English.
A good writing is sometimes described in alphabetical order as
- Amazing writing
- Beautiful writing
- Creative writing
- Data-rich writing
- Effective writing
There are a few parameters that add to a piece of good writing. For a writing to be called amazing ,beautiful, creative, data rich or effective , it must be enriched with some fundamental aspects.
They can be referred to as four C's in my view.
The four C's that determine a writing to be good enough are :
- Clear writing
- Concise writing
- Correct writing
- Complete writing
Good writing is an art and a craft and it involves a great skill too. In this article we shall concentrate on the last type of good writing- "Effective Writing".
Effective writers :
- Effective writers know that their craft requires skill, practice and dedication.
- They also know how to use specific strategies to make their writing more polished and stronger overall.
- One may explore these few techniques and embrace these skills to become a stronger and more effective a writer.
- Outline Your Work
- Good writing is not about using punctuations or choosing high sounding words. Rather it is about mapping the need of the moment.
- Effective writing conveys thoughts in a crystal clear way, and that too with an outline.
- A good writer will create thoughts that flow together and finally merge into a cohesive, concrete message.
- An outline serves as the basic backbone of the paper or article. It gives one the structure that the writer wants to fill in with details.
- The outline keeps one away from trailing away or skidding off the path and keeps the writer organized.
2. Know your Audience
- You don't write just because you know the art or the trade. You have a message to convey to your audience.
- Good writers empathize with their audience’s hopes, fears, dreams, desires and frustrations.
- They pinpoint what their audience wants to learn or achieve.
- They seek to understand how their audience is entertained.
- If you want to be a strong writer, make notes about your audience before you begin an article or blog post.
- This will guide your style of writing , communication techniques and even the subject matter.
3. Use A Stronger Opening
Your first sentence is your chance to hook the reader and make them want to read. It must be strong. For that you may opt for the S C R E E N method.
- Share a personal anecdote or story.
- Create a sense of need in the reader.
- Render a surprising fact.
- Establish a personal connection.
- Enter his/her heart.
- Nurture a dream within.
4. Learn To Write Concisely
- Another sign of effective writing is precision, making the writing precise and clear.
- Short, clear, punchy, compact and in depth sentences are powerful.
- Long, Rambling sentences lack power. Writers who get their point across in 10 words rather than rambling on for multiple sentences are better writers.
- Unnecessary words jumble up the meaning, discourage and bore the reader.
How To Write Concisely ???
- One way to learn to write concisely is by learning about passive voice and active voice.
- Active voice construction places the action doer as the subject of the sentence.
- Passive voice converts the subject to the object of the sentence.
For example:
- A doctor is the active person, the subject of the following sentence.
The doctor operated the patient. (Active Voice)
- But in the next sentence, the doctor is still doing his job, yet he is used as a passive or less active one than the patient.
- You use more number of words to convey the exactly same meaning.
The patient was operated by the doctor. (Passive Voice)
- So using passive voice is not concise writing.
5. Master Self-Editing
Often, conciseness in your writing comes in the editing stage.
Before you make it concise, you must know what you wish to say.
Your outline will help you with that.
After you get your thoughts on paper, decide what and how much to filter.
Many of the writers find writing zones to shorten their thoughts and make them more concise.
6. Avoid Common Grammar Errors
- Good writers know their weak points.
- Learning to spot and fix common grammar errors will make you a better writer.
- Here are some to watch for:
- Sentence problems –
- Sentences can be run-ons, which combine two complete sentences together without punctuation or conjunctions, or fragments, which don’t complete the thought.
- Both are errors. A sentence needs a subject, a predicate and a complete thought.
- Comma usage – Commas are tricky. Good writers know when to use a comma, such as when joining two independent clauses with a conjunction or after introductory phrases. .
- Subject-Verb agreement – Subjects and verbs should agree in number. Plural subjects need plural verbs, as do singular subjects and verbs.
- Misplaced modifiers – Modifiers are words or phrases that modify another part of the sentence. If misplaced, they hurt the clarity factor. The modifier needs to be placed near the word it modifies so the meaning remains clear and uniform.
- Verb_ Tense – When writing, the tenses of the verb needs to stay consistent throughout, unless the meaning dictates a change. For example, if you are writing an essay about something that happened in the past, keep the verbs past tense.
- Pronoun agreement – Like verbs, pronouns must agree with the nouns they represent. For pronouns, this agreement is gender and number.
- A man would only be replaced with he, him and his.
for example.
When the man called me with my name, I did not recognize him as his voice had changed altogether.
7. Choose Strong Verbs
- Strong writing demands strong verbs.
- Write the most descriptive verb for the action.
- For instance, instead of saying:
He went to the distant city
Say:
He flew to the distant city.
The verb flew tells more about the action than went. With went, the reader could picture walking , biking or driving rather than flying in a plane.
8. Use Adjectives And Adverbs Sparingly
- Throwing an adjective or adverb into a sentence may feel like it’s beefing up the content, but strong writing is concise.
- Trying to improve flat, boring words with modifiers falls short.
- Adverbs like very or somewhat have little power.
- Instead, look for a more precise or interesting noun or verb.
To help, a list of common verbs are rounded up briefly here at the end of the article and in the next article Proper Usage of Verbs in details.
9. Read Your Work aloud
- When you complete the first draft, the real fun begins: editing.
- To help catch errors and wordiness, consider reading your draft out loud.
- When you hear your written work read out loud, you notice errors you glossed over when reading it silently.
- You catch spots where the writing is unclear or overly wordy.
- If it’s a longer piece, you can go one step further and record yourself reading it.
- Then, listen back to passages that sound odd. It can take several passes before reaching a final draft.
10. Revise, Edit And Proofread
- Proofreading gives you the chance to find errors you missed when editing
Revising, editing and proofreading are all separate steps.
- First of all, revise the piece of writing.
- Make sure your main idea is clear and your writing is concise.
- This takes a big-picture view of a piece of writing and makes changes that make it stronger.
- Next, edit the piece. Editing takes a smaller view of the piece to analyze each sentence for clarity, efficiency and grammar. This is where you focus on punctuation and spelling mistakes.
- Finally, proofread. This is a final read-through of the piece before publication. This gives you the chance to find errors you missed when editing. It also lets you check for stylistic errors if you need to match a particular style guide.
11. Use Effective Writing Tools
- The Internet gives several tools to writers to help make a piece of writing stronger.
- The Hemingway App is one of these. Plugging your piece of writing into the Hemingway App shows you passive voice errors, wordy sentences and overall readability.
- Use the app to target a specific reading level and make your main point clearer in the overall peace.
- For most audiences, you want a high school or lower reading level, and the Hemingway App shows you this quickly.
- Grammarly is another such tool, which you can use either through a plug-in on your browser or through the website directly,
- Grammarly offers powerful grammar-checking software that highlights grammar and spelling errors. It also homes in on word choice problems.
- This tool protects you from making glaring grammar errors that make your writing less effective.
The Final Word On Effective Writing
- Effective writers know that writing isn’t a fast process. It takes time and work to master the craft.
- Write a little every day, work on specific parts of your craft and press publish early and often.
- By learning these steps and applying them every time you write, you can become a better writer.
We shall discuss on effective writing in the second part of this article in more details along with effective practical examples. So bye till we talk on this article next. Thank you.
A list of common verbs
https://scce65.blogspot.com
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