Writing Basics: To Improve your writing, write

Writing is similar to any other language skill (reading, speaking, listening); to improve the skill, you need to practice the skill. For writing, that means writing as much as possible, different types of writing, as often as possible. That's why many writing/composition teachers ask their students to write in a daily journal. It gives students a reason to write every day, about something, whatever they want to write about. And the journal is usually not corrected, or corrected very lightly, by the teacher. If you want to play the piano, practice every day playing the piano. If you want to write well, practice writing every day. And work on improving your writing a little every day, using new words, grammar, expressions, that you have learned. Read what you have written and ask yourself how you could have written it better. Re-write what you wrote making necessary changes. Ask a native speaker to read your writing and give you some feedback about it, and how you could have written it better. To write better, write more often.

Writing Basics: Writing resources

Writers have many resources to help them improve their writing skills. At Ivy Tech Community College, students can go to the new Learning Resources Center for free help with their writing from a qualified writing tutor or instructor. After spending some time with a tutor, students can go to the new library only a few steps away to check out a book, read a newspaper or magazine, or just find a comfortable place to relax and hang out.

One of the best online resources for writers is the Online Writing Laboratory (OWL) from Purdue University, OWL where many resources to help writers can be found. Click on the ESL link on the left-hand side of the homepage to access the ESL resources. Check it out!

Of course, one of your best resources is your writing instructor, who will always be eager to help you improve your writing skills.

Writing Basics: Write about what you don't know

If you are an ESL student, when you first start writing in English, it's good for you to start writing about what you know: your country, classmates, experiences, job, family, and so on. After you become used to writing in English, start writing about what you don't know. Why? This will help you learn to do research, it will help you gain new and valuable knowledge, and it will be fun. It's fun to learn new things, right? And, you will get better grades in your classes!

An easy way to start doing research on a subject that you don't know about, or don't know much about, is to use the Internet. We all have access to the Internet. There is so much information there. But be careful. Not everything that is on the Internet is true or even factual. So choose your sources carefully. Make sure that what you have found on the Internet is not just someone's opinion. If you do use some information you have found on the Internet in your writing, be sure to give the reference so your readers can find where you got the information on the Internet.

Keep on reading, writing, and learning!

Writing Basics: Sleep on it

Here is a suggestion for the thinking/pre-writing step of writing. Before you go to sleep, think about what you want to write and write your thoughts down. All of them. Then go to sleep. While you are sleeping, your subconscious mind will think about what you wrote down. You may even dream about it. When you wake up the next morning, you will be able to write about you subject, because your mind has been thinking about it for eight hours, or however many hours of sleep you are able to get. You may even wake up suddenly in the middle of the night with a brilliant idea. Keep your list and a pencil by your bedside so you can write down the idea because you may not remember it in the morning. A brilliant idea is a terrible thing to waste!

Writing Basics: Who are your readers?

When you sit down to think about writing anything, a very important step in the pre-writing stage is to think about who you are writing for. If you are journaling or writing in a diary, your audience is you. You will be the only person reading your journal, or maybe your teacher, so you need to worry too much about your readers. For all other types of writing, you need to think about your reader(s)and ask yourself some questions such as:

Who, besides my writing teacher, are my readers?
How much do my readers know about my topic?
What will grab my readers' attention?
What don't they know about my topic? How can I teach them something new?
What do my readers expect from my writing? Do they want to learn something new about the subject, be entertained, find out my opinion(s) about the subject?
What is the educational level of my readers?
Do the readers have any biases or strong opinions about the subject that I should take into account in what I write?

If you take the time to really think through these questions, and have answers for them, you will have a clearer idea of what your readers expect from your writing and be able to organize and shape your writing to be of more interest to them. After all, if you are going to take the time to write something, you want your readers to be satisfied after reading it.

Writing Basics: Thinking and writing

Thinking is the first step of the writing process. Everything (including writing) begins with a thought. This stage of writing is sometimes referred to as pre-writing or brainstorming. Here are some questions you need to ask yourself before you start writing, and have clear answers in your mind. This will make the writing go much better. Don't hurry or skip this step.

What is my topic?
What am I going to write about that topic?
What do I already know about the topic and what research do I need to do?
Who are my readers? Who is my audience?
What do my readers already know about the topic and what might they be interested in learning from me?
How can I grab my readers' attention from the very beginning, whether I am writing a paragraph, essay, article, or book?
What unique perspective can I bring to the topic based on my own knowledge and experience?

After you have answered all these pre-writing questions and jotted down some notes to capture your thoughts, you are ready to start organizing your thoughts in the form of an outline.

Writing Basics: Have something to say

When I teach writing skills to ESL students, one of the first things I tell them is that they need to have something interesting or valuable to say before they start writing. We all have different knowledge and experiences to share with readers. If we can write something that helps the reader learn something new, or think about something in a different way, we have done our job as writers. Because ESL students come from many countries, with different cultures and languages, they have different perspectives that will be interesting to read about.

So start with what you know!