A College’s Guide to Improve Writing Skills

According to most employers, they favor applicants that have an excellent writing skill. And apparently, this is what they want universities to give importance to while they hone their students. That being said, expect to have a lot of essays and research papers.

Assuming that you excelled back in high school and won writing competitions, this is not a guarantee that you will impress your college professors. Definitely, you will need to improve your game and to scale your techniques. We have here a number of tricks that can help improve your writing. Take note though that this isn’t going to be an overnight success.

Read and Write Regularly

We encourage you to read as many materials as you can and try to provide your insights on a regular basis. Be diverse and read general news, health section, sports, or even topics which are not your cup of tea. 

Come to think of it, most of us write every day on our social media accounts, and we don’t even notice it. You can start from there. The primary concern though is that most of us use colloquial terms on these platforms. That’s forgivable if you are in high school. But college is a different universe. Level up your game by writing more insightful social media posts that use a professional tone. 

By both reading and writing, you add more to your bank of knowledge, and you naturally widen your vocabulary. At the same time, you form a personal writing style that you can use in the long run. Start practicing even before you receive your first writing assignment. 

Thoroughly Understand the Instructions 

The reason why a lot of college students fail in their writing tasks is that they immediately write their report, reaction paper, or essays without understanding the specific instructions. Some professors are fond of providing ‘trick’ instructions to see if the students will follow. Is there a specific number of words required? Do you have to use an MLA or APA format? 

Spend Time Researching 

Perhaps back in high school, you can finish a reaction paper overnight – and still be able to get good grades. That doesn’t work in tertiary education. Your instructors will expect more from you, and your writing must be a perfect balance of your own opinion backed up by research and data. Adding quotes can put weight on your writing as well. It’s always a nice touch to include words from iconic people. Just make sure that you can tie it up with your argument.  

You must remove your personal biases and be more analytical when providing your thoughts. There is no room for fluff content. Every sentence must be significant and should give value to the entire article. 

Practice Free-Writing 

Do you sometimes feel that you can’t start writing because you have a lot of ideas? And then by the end of the day, you are stuck and ended up with a blank sheet. Don’t worry as it happens to most people. 

But what experts suggest is that you start by free-writing. The concept means you just start typing your ideas without thinking if these are cohesive enough, well-arranged or uses the right punctuation and grammar. 

Its main purpose is to fight off writer’s block. And when you see all these ideas written down, it is easier for you to arrange the topics and make sense out of it. 

Find a Writing Mentor 

Often times, we think we did our best in terms of writing a reaction paper or essay. But in reality, our perspective is limited to our experience and knowledge. And so it is always good to look for a writing mentor. They could suggest a better angle and provide technical improvements to your current writing style. Embrace all the criticisms and apply what you’ve learned. 

Use Technology to Proofread Your Work

While knowing how to proofread is an essential skill, you can also use technology to your advantage. Fortunately, there are websites and software that can cross-check your work. Grammarly is the most popular one today. From there, it can automatically detect usual errors and provide suggestions that can improve the overall quality of your work. 

Notice that we did not include the general tips such as creating an outline or writing in the active voice. These things are already established and can be found in most articles similar to this. Thus, we took a different approach and provided you with fresher ideas on how you can improve your writing skill.