Writing, especially in this century has become an importance to every single individual in the official education sector. It is theregor a huge task unto every individual, literate or illiterate of the English Language to specialize in writing an effective and interactive English. By so doing, these are a list of relevant principles that would help to improve your writing skills in all forms.
Importance Of Improving Your Writing Skills
- It helps you, the writer to develop a much understandable essay or content for easy reading and fluid understand.
- It saves time for content digestion on the side of readers.
- It generally helps the writer to develop a lengthy passage, not necessarily, thesis.
- Improving your writing skills one way or the other improves your speaking of a language, not necessarily, English but other languages as well.
10 Relevant Principles To Improve Your Writing Skills
1. Use Short/Simple Sentences
Use an average of 10 – 20 words a sentence is most acceptable nowadays. Long sentences are tiring and in most cases, they can be shortened by throwing out unnecessary words. Using short sentences also enable a free flow of reading.
2. Prefer the Simple to the Complex
The Englishman, H. W. Fowler and his brother in their famous book ‘The King’s English’, put it best: “Prefer the familiar word to the far-fetched. Prefer the concrete word to the abstract. Prefer the single word to the circumlocution. Prefer the short word to the long. Prefer the Saxon word to the Romance.”
3. Prefer the Familiar Word
Most people’s conversation is limited to about 3000 words. Well educated people probably know about 20 to 30 thousand words. It all depends on whom you are writing for. Common words will be understood by everybody and virtually any idea can be expressed with a vocabulary of only 3000 words. Avoid using unfamiliar words simply to impress or force a reader to go to the dictionary (they won’t).
Read Also: Most Commonly Used Words Invented By William Shakespeare
4. Avoid Unnecessary Words
Imagine there is a tax payable on words used. Think about every word, “Can it be cut”. Writing gains clarity when it is concise.
5. Use Action Verbs
“He drove very fast down the road.” Much better is, “He sped down the road”. The words ‘very fast’ are adjectives used to strengthen the word ‘drove’. ‘Sped’, or perhaps, ‘raced’, is better because of reader psychology. People prefer facts to opinions. ‘Sped’ is a fact, ‘very fast’ is an opinion.
6. Write As You Talk
The written word is a substitute for the spoken word. The habit of writing as though you were speaking almost always leads to clearer writing. Just cut out the ‘ums’ and ‘er’s’ and the repetitions that usually come into the spoken word.
7. Use Terms Your Reader Can Picture.
For the best, use abstract words wherever possible. Aesop’s Fables have been read for thousands of years because he turned abstractions like greed, envy, anger into stories that could be pictured. Jesus did this also with his parables.
8. Connect With Your Reader’s Experience
Put yourself in your reader’s shoes otherwise he or she might understand your words but misunderstand your meaning. The reader could have a different ground from the writer. A good example is in politics where people from one nation talking about aggression can seem like hypocrites to the other nation because of preconceptions about who is the aggressor in each side’s point of view.
9. Use Variety
Most prose, even if the subject is serious, can contain some humor, some surprise, maybe some personal injection. Avoid monotonous flat prose.
10. Write To Express Not Impress
It is still all too often the case that people resort to unfamiliar, long words and meandering prose, especially when making formal announcements. Policemen say, “the thief was apprehended”, not, “We caught the thief”. Notices say, “Please refrain from smoking”, rather than, “Please do not smoke”. Nobody actually uses the word ‘refrain’ in normal conversation so why use it in a notice? It is done to sound important, make the notice sound official, done to impress, not express.
Cc: Sunday Adugba
thepoetshub.com
