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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 skills are used to make first impressions throughout your life; everywhere from email to introductory letters to accompany your resume to business writing. You wouldn’t write the cover letter to your resume in text message style abbreviations (or at least I urge you not to).

There are all proven techniques to assist you in writing well and making yourself understood.

1) Know who you are writing for before you even begin. Keep in mind what your intended audience knows about the topic already. Don’t waste their time by reiterating the basics. If you are writing for mechanics, you don’t need to explain what a wrench is, for instance. However, if it is technical writing, such as instructions which you are writing, then do give the basics and go step by step. 2) When writing, remember the advice of your English teachers. Come up with a theme and work from there. Know how you will end your piece and just write. You can go back and edit or rewrite later. Begin with the most important point. 3) When you go back to rewrite, don’t worry about simply tossing out the first part of your piece; even a few hundred words. This is common - many writers use the first few paragraphs to warm up.

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 whenever you can. Remember that it is better to show than tell. As an example, compare these two sentences, the first in the passive voice, the second in the active voice: “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 second scans better and holds the reader’s attention far better than does the version in the passive voice. Take note of this.

Read your piece out loud to yourself. This is the very best way to identify a poorly cast sentence out of your piece. You’ll be able to hear your words in your head as you write with enough practice; this will greatly improve your writing.

Writing well is a skill that’s seldom taught any more. The advice given above used to be drilled into writer’s heads when they were in junior high school - now they’re doled out in college level courses.

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