Writing Is a Vital Communication Skill
Author: DaniseB.Keasda Total views: 11 Word Count: 526
Everyone knows this; first impressions are important. This is one of the best reasons to sharpen your writing skills. Written communication is a very important part of interacting with other people. Writing well entails knowing the workings of English grammar, punctuation and usage and also the fine shades of meaning which can be drawn using the language.
Writing is a skill which you will be called upon to make first impressions with all through your life. Whether brief missives via email or important business documents, the word you put on the page matter a great deal. After all, you wouldn't write a business proposal in IM-speak, would you?
There are all proven techniques to assist you in writing well and making yourself understood.
1) Always know your audience. You should remember that your audience has (or lacks) certain knowledge about the topic, so don't cover ground like defining different types of flour if your audience is pastry chefs. If you are writing something more technical, for instance instructional materials, then by all means to start from the basics and work your way up. 2) Remember what you were taught in high school. Start your piece from a theme and know your ending before you begin. Once you know that, just start getting it down on the page - you can go back and rewrite your piece afterwards. Always start your piece with the most important point you have to make. 3) When rewriting, don't be afraid to throw away quite a lot of the original piece, even if it's the first several hundred words. Many writers are just warming up for the first paragraphs, so this is the part of your piece generally in the greatest need of rewriting.
Habits to avoid:
After you have finished and rewritten your piece, then do a find and replace for *ly.* is the wild card character telling your word processor to find and replace and word ending in "ly". You can replace this with a word you would not be using in your piece; turnip, for instance. If your sentences work without this adjectival form, then leave the word out entirely. Otherwise, find a better adjective.
Write in the active voice; this is easier to show than to tell. "Running, Brooke's heart raced as she attempted to evade her pursuers." "Brooke ran from her pursuers as fast as she could, her heart racing, as her mind sought any means to evade capture." The former is in passive voice - it describes things in a mealy mouthed not quite after the fact way. The second example has our hearts racing with Brooke's as we read the sentence.
After all of your rewriting, read your piece to yourself out loud. There is no better way to identify an awkward sentence than this. With enough practice at this technique, you will be able to hear the piece in your head as you write - this technique will bring about a vast improvement in your writing.
Writing well is a skill which is barely taught in our schools anymore. What once was commonplace in junior high classrooms is now reserved for college coursework; a truly tragic development.
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About the Author
Authored by Danise B. Keasda, a skilled teacher for more than 12 years. She has been reporting on home schooling since the 90's. She is an expert in helping families find resources for writing lessons and paragraph writing exercises.
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