Writing is hard. No one is going to deny that, I mean it’s pretty hard to argue basic facts. However, writing doesn’t need to be impossible especially if you’re writing about something that you’re passionate about. If you write for recreation, if you’re for an essay, or for an article that you were supposed to write weeks ago but you completely forgot about it, there are plenty of helpful tricks and tips that could help you to produce the best that you have to offer. I’ve found that there are a couple of things that I do that really help improve my writing, and while I know that not everything that works for me is going to work for you, it might help you find a couple of things that could help you as well. Or, maybe the things on my list will work for you. It could go either way, who knows?

My first step is preparation. Now I usually write fiction, I write fictional stories with things that I write and develop from the ground up, however, this is one of the steps where it can be applied to anything. Preparation is the key to success. To speak on the more academic aspect of writing, say you’re given an essay to write by your English teacher about, totally hypothetically, Jay Hienriks’ ‘Thank You for Arguing’, talking about the rhetorical strategies displayed in the book. Let’s assume for the moment that this totally random and not real teacher gives you a few days to write about and plan this essay and not about 45 minutes in a test environment. What would help the most with this essay? Planning it out. It’s greatly beneficial for you to have a general idea of what you’re writing and what you’re trying to convey through your writing. Having a map of what you’re writing is the best way to go if you want your writing to make sense and you want your teacher to give you a good grade on it.  Of course, you could always do as most students do, forget you have an essay to write, and then speed write all of it the night before, and sometimes it works. Sometimes. Better safe than sorry folks, plan stuff out.

Here’s the next step for when you’ve actually gotten to the writing part. You’re writing and you don’t think that whatever you’re writing isn’t sophisticated enough or it isn’t good enough so you go back and you start putting in really big words to make your essay appear fancier and more interesting. Trust me, big excessive, large words don’t need to be used in your essay about happiness. When it comes to writing, I’ve found that just simple everyday words can take you a long way, what matters is the way that you use those words. It’s all about phrasing and putting the words together in the best way possible so that you can get to the point and that it will be clear to your audience and the teacher reading and grading it. Make life easier for those involved so that they won’t have to whip out the dictionary, just omit words that are nothing but flourish.

In the same vein, you may also feel the need to add in extra words that you don’t need to make your writing longer so that you hit your minimum word count. Let me tell you right now, you don’t need that. I’ve found that when it comes to writing for academics and assignments, the shorter the better. The fewer words that you need to use to get to your point the better. Now there are certain situations where straight-to-the-point sentences don’t convey what you want to say properly, and there are plenty of writing styles that require long, bordering run-on sentences, making for a good piece of writing. Heck, reading back, a good majority of this article is a jumble of run-on sentences so this can seem like I’m being hypocritical, but I swear that it’s more useful to write shorter statements.  And on top of all of that, I can assure you that your teachers are going to know when you’re using unneeded words to make your graded writing longer. They may not do doc points for it, but they’re probably silently judging you just a little bit.

I hope that at least one of these tips will help in benefiting your writing as well as those who are reading your writing so that you can convey your points to the best of your abilities. Of course, all of these are just suggestions, listen to them or not, and they won’t affect me in any way. I mean if you want your writing to have some improvement, I’d say listen, but you know, to each their own.