Everyone has to write for other people at some point in their life, whether it’s a résumé, an email to a potential client, or a Facebook post about something that really matters to you. If writing is not something you’re accustomed to doing on a regular basis, this can feel really intimidating. You want your reader to focus on what you’re trying to communicate, not get caught up in how you put the words on the page. Improving your writing is a lifetime goal. Sadly, it’s never going to be one of those things that you can say you’ve finally arrived. But here are a few quick tips to get you started to improve your writing.
Look for repetition
This is advice that most of us learned in middle school but often forget to look for when we’re editing our own work. Often when you’re writing about an idea, there’s a certain word or phrase that seems to sum it up perfectly. So you use it. A lot. I’m guilty of it too. When you’re self-editing, be on the lookout for words or phrases that are repeated too often.
Stop trying to sound too smart
Unless you’re writing a legal document or a high-level academic paper, the big words are actually going to make you sound less intelligent. Oftentimes, using unnecessarily grand words makes it appear like you’re trying too hard or compensating for lack of knowledge. The other risk in trying to use too many big words is that it’s a lot easier to use them incorrectly. This has the opposite effect of what you’re going for. Instead of sounding more intelligent, you sound less so, especially for those who actually know what the words mean.
Even if you’ve looked up the obscure word in the dictionary and used it properly, it can still be a bad idea to keep it in your writing. Most typically, you’re wanting to write for a general audience who do not want to be scared off by big words. The point of writing is to communicate an idea, so make sure that your readers can understand it. Chances are, if you had to look it up to make sure that you used it correctly, your readers will have to look it up too. Keep it simple.
Vary your sentence lengths
Sometimes use short sentences. It’s also good to add longer sentences so that your sentence lengths are varied. This keeps your writing more interesting. It also makes it much easier for people to read. If all your sentences were the exact same length, they would blur together on the page. Change it up. But maybe not as much as I did just now. You want it to feel natural 😉
Never use the word very
It’s very annoying. But taking out the word makes it very easy to improve your writing. If you think about it, the word doesn’t mean very much. See how this word is getting very annoying and very distracting? If you took it out altogether, all your sentences would still have meaning. Read through the last few sentences again but take out the word ‘very.’ You can see that it doesn’t add anything to my sentences. In fact, the word only serves to distract from my point. Other similar words include really, pretty, and like, though there are plenty more.
One quick trick if you’re writing on a computer is to do a word search on whichever word you’re concerned you’re using too much of. This will show you every single instance you’ve used it, and you can quickly decide whether or not it’s necessary in every instance. This is perhaps the quickest and easiest way to improve your writing. And, of course, you can certainly follow the wise and colorful advice of Mark Twain.
Keep a list of words you struggle with
If you’re continually tripped up by there, they’re, and their, write it down so you remember to check for it in the future. When you’re editing, do a word search to see if you used the words properly in each instance. If you’re not sure, google it. Or, better yet, ask a friend to check those words for you. The more you check for those mistakes, the better you’ll get at not making them in the first place. This trick helps you improve your writing in the short term and will pay dividends in the future.
What do you think? Are there other tips you have to quickly improve your writing? Leave a comment and let me know if you’ve tried any of these!
