Top Ten ways to fix your writing problems
TL;DR: Improve your writing by developing a focused thesis, organizing related ideas, supporting claims with specific examples, and using clear, precise, active language. Follow assignment and formatting requirements, document your sources, and proofread carefully for errors.
- Improve your writing by crafting a strong thesis statement, organizing your ideas and using concrete language.
- Make your writing clear and powerful by avoiding vague assertions, using examples, and writing in the active voice.
- Improve your proofreading and editing by (1) taking breaks before reviewing, (2) reading your work aloud, (3) getting feedback from other people, and (4) using tools to check spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
- Mistakes to eliminate include:
- Inappropriate tone
- Poor organization
- Incorrect formatting
- Mechanical errors like spelling and grammar mistakes
On a course evaluation form for a course that I recently taught, a student wrote (reproduced as written): "Change the professor's attitude toward the necessity of grammar skills. There seemed to be much more comments about grammer than need be."
The comment suggests that I had not adequately explained how grammar and other writing skills contribute to clear communication.
Being Articulate, Clear, and Persuasive
- 10. It is polite to point!
- Your paper will likely drift if it does not grow out of a clear thesis statement. A good thesis statement does two things: it states clearly what you intend to demonstrate in your paper, and it outlines how you will develop that main point. Here's an example thesis: "World War I resulted from a series of tensions that developed among European nations at the turn of the century. Among these were imperialism, militarism, and an unstable alliance system."
- 9. Sometimes, it pays to be narrow-minded.
- Students often try to do too much in a piece of writing (short essay or longer research paper). The average term paper cannot possibly contain everything there is to say about a subject. Look again at the sample thesis above. It narrows the discussion to just three aspects of World War I.
- 8. Sink rocks. Don't skip stones.
- Pursue a few things in depth. No one wants to read something that merely mentions a slew of things. It is better to say a lot about a few things than a tiny bit about a lot of things. So, examine a limited number of issues in detail. Think of the difference between skipping a stone across a pond and dropping a large rock into it. Rocks make big waves. Little stones barely trouble the surface.
- 7. Oh yeah, says who?
- Do not use a quote unless you make clear in the text who it is you're quoting. Do not try to accomplish this with just a footnote. Instead, identify the speaker in the text like this: According to historian Mary Beth Norton, "The prosperity of the late Gilded Age largely ignored industrial workers."
- 6. So what?
- Your research will turn up data that is very important as well as things that are simply trivia. Your job is to sift through and analyze material. A particular detail might fascinate you, but if it doesn't relate closely to your thesis, it's not relevant. Anticipate that your readers will ask "so what?" questions. Unless you say why something is important, readers may see it as simply random information.
- 5. Finish your veggies ... and your thoughts!
- Tell the entire story, and tell your reader why you have included what you chose. Things may be clear in your mind. However, your audience can only read what's on the paper. They cannot peer into your mind.
- 4. One good example is worth a thousand colorful adjectives.
- Be specific. Support your main points with specific examples or other relevant evidence. A string of adjectives cannot substitute for a concrete example. Good writers make their work come alive with examples that render ideas tangible and real. Don't tell me something was "really bad." Explain what made it bad.
- 3. Who in the world are "the people?"
- Avoid constructing categories so general and broad that they are questionable and meaningless. Be concrete and specific. For example: "The Indians" is a vague phrase. "Cherokee communities in northern Georgia in the 1820s" is specific. Avoid implying that an entire national or cultural group shares the same views. Tell me which people you mean.
- 2. Don't put socks in your underwear drawer.
- Most "organizational" problems occur when writers do not keep related material in the same place. Thoroughly discuss a topic, then move on to a different point. For example, if you're discussing Indigenous peoples and enslaved people, group related material together instead of jumping between topics without a clear reason. Returning to a topic can be appropriate in a comparison or chronological discussion, provided the transitions are clear. Your paper should be like an orderly chest of drawers, with each distinct item in its own place.
- 1. Proofread and edit.
- Careful proofreading and editing is the number one way to improve your writing. Sadly, students rarely do it well. Careless errors, clunky phrases, spelling mistakes, and deplorable grammar abound. Student writers sometimes think they're done once they put the final period on the page. Not so. Read your work. If what you've written sounds wrong to you, it will likely not sound any better to someone else. Remember: Not knowing how to spell something is not a sin. It is a sin not to look it up.
Based on material by Rob Weir, Bay Path College. Originally published in The Teaching Professor. Used and edited with permission.
Characteristics of inadequate student writing
- Has an inappropriate tone, such as:
- Too personal
- Disrespectful or sarcastic
- A preachy ending
- Pompous or artificially "academic"
- Too chatty or colloquial
- Does not follow assignment directions
- Does not seem to be arguing anything
- Is rambling or even incoherent (rambles on and on without saying much of anything)
- Has no thesis or "main point" statement
- Is full of vague assertions
- Says things that are inadequately supported with hard data, examples, or evidence of research
- Sounds like a busy-work exercise since it does not explain things for a more general audience than the professor, nor does it take itself seriously as a piece of writing someone would actually want to read.
- Is poorly organized
- Does not follow an introduction-body-conclusion structure
- Too wordy or redundant
- Is poorly presented as an academic paper (no title, no page numbers, or missing other required formatting elements)
- Does not use the correct style (APA, MLA, Turabian)
- Uses source material without adequate attribution
- Does not properly document secondary source material (from web pages, journals, and books)
- Uses confusing or illogical sentences
- Overuses to be verbs
- Contains jargon
- Uses faulty parallelism
- Overuses passive voice
- Misuses terminology particular to a content area
- Is full of spelling errors or irritating mechanical errors
- Sentence fragments
- Comma splices
- Run-on or fused sentences: independent clauses joined without appropriate punctuation or a coordinating conjunction
- Apostrophe errors
- Confusing or misspelling common words (confusing their, they're, there; too, to, two; its, it's; etc.)
- Incorrect verb forms (He had went)
- Subject/verb agreement errors (such as leaving off the -s for third person singular present tense)
- Repeated or illogical shifts in verb tense
-- Howard Culbertson, hculbert@snu.edu
Like most college professors, I've seen hilarious errors in student-written papers. Here's a recent one:
"One of the values instilled in me by my upbringing is that it is wrong to be married out of wedlock."
Writing with pizzazz
How to write clearly and persuasively
Doing something with pizzazz means doing it with flair, energy, and excitement. Though few of us aspire to win Pulitzer Prizes with our writing, we do want our writing to be a credit to us.
In the book Writing on the Job: Quick, Practical Solutions to All Your Business Writing Problems, Cosmo Ferrara explains how to add pizzazz to writing:
- Turn being verbs into doing ones.
Verbs such as is, are, were, and has been can make writing sound flat and bureaucratic. When appropriate, replacing being verbs with more specific doing verbs can make writing more engaging. Forms of to be are sometimes necessary; they do not automatically weaken writing. For example:
Being verbs: "I was at the church last week and was given a tour of the building."
Doing verbs: "I visited the church last week and toured the building."
- Write concretely instead of abstractly.
Expressing your thoughts concretely gives the reader a clear picture of what you are saying. Have trouble thinking of concrete phrases to replace abstract ones? Then think of how to communicate those same ideas in a conversation. Sadly, we often tend to speak in a more concrete manner than we write.
- Write precisely.
Imprecise writers use extra words and syllables. Precise writers use fewer words to communicate the same ideas. As you re-read what you've written, look for places to substitute fewer words while saying the same thing.
- Ask rhetorical questions.
As you write, think of questions that might pop into readers' minds. For example: "What purpose do rhetorical questions serve?" Because human beings are curious, many will start looking for an answer to the question you have posed.
- Personalize large numbers.
Readers pay more attention when they think information affects them personally. Engage your readers by expressing numbers in human or visual terms. Here is a hypothetical example that expresses the same information in more familiar terms:
Original sentence: "The organization served 3,650 meals last year."
Improved version: "The organization served an average of 10 meals a day last year."
- Write in the active voice.
Passive sentences: "At last week's meeting, it was agreed that the old software must be replaced."
Active voice: "At our last meeting, we agreed to replace the old software."
Prefer active voice when it makes the sentence clearer. Use passive voice when the actor is unknown, unimportant, or less important than the action or its recipient.
Adapted from an article in The Office Professional. Used under the "fair use" provisions of U.S. copyright law.
How can I be a better proofreader?
Want to eliminate small, annoying errors in your writing?
Like most college professors, I've seen lots of hilarious errors in student-written papers. Here are two recent ones that would have been caught by good proofreading:
- "There were a lot of times where Jesus would speak to huge crows, such as at the Sermon on the Mount."
- "What struck me most was the way they embarrassed the gospel"
Eliminate distracting errors
Do you proofread your writing? If you don't take that last-minute look for mistakes before handing in papers, you may let some errors slip by that will affect your grade. Just depending on a computer spell-check program or an AI app will not be enough.
- When possible, take a break before proofreading.
Take a break after you've written something. When you come back to it, the document will look fresh, and you'll be more likely to notice mistakes.
- Try proofreading from the bottom up.
Reading backward can help you focus on individual words. Use this technique to supplement reading normally for meaning and sentence structure.
- Read your papers out loud.
Not only will you catch typographical errors by reading aloud, but you are also more likely to hear incorrect or awkward phrasing.
- Use your computer's spell- and grammar-check features.
Most word processing programs identify spelling and grammar mistakes on screen for you. Grammarly is an app that will be helpful!
- Review in two passes.
- First, read a paper through for content. Make sure all information is correct.
- When you are satisfied with the content, read through the paper again, checking spelling and grammar.
- Don't do all your proofreading on the computer screen.
A printed copy may help you notice mistakes you missed on screen.
- Develop a buddy system in which someone else proofreads everything you write.
You know what you meant to say. So, although your eye sees an error, it may not register in your mind. Since your brain "knows" what is supposed to be there, another person proofreading your written work will often spot more errors in your writing than you can.
Check out this humorous writing checklist.
-- Howard Culbertson,
Afterword: To Sum Up
Writing improves with practice, thoughtful revision, and feedback. Focus on a clear main point, support it with specific examples, organize related ideas, and check your wording carefully. These habits will help you communicate more clearly and confidently.
Here is help for doing well in your classes
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