Writing

Students often ask me “How can I improve my writing?” Unfortunately, there is no easy answer to this question – the best answer is that it takes time and a lot of hard work. However, I have some suggestions that should help.

Keep an ‘error profile‘

An error profile is a list of mistakes you frequently make. You need to know what your problems are before you can correct them. However, you are unlikely to be able to easily identify your weaknesses yourself: we usually judge our performance in another language based on ideas which come from our first language. You will need a method to identity your errors and will likely need feedback from someone else. Keeping notes is likely to be helpful. For example, you could ask a teacher to point out what errors you make most often, or you could keep notes based on feedback to your weekly homework. You could then make notes on your most serious/frequent errors such as in the list below:

Don’t try to fix everything at once. If you try to correct all your errors at once, you will confuse yourself. Instead, try to focus on one or two issues for each of your own texts that you edit and correct.

Focus on improving structure

The quickest way to improve your writing is to focus on structure. Improving your grammar is a slow process that will take a lot of effort, but improving the structure of your paragraphs and texts will take much less effort. A clear, logical structure is more important than perfect grammar. To improve the quality of a text, it is far more useful to make sure that ideas make sense and follow each other logically, than to worry about grammar mistakes. In the “Error profile” above, the dealing with the first two points (topic sentences and linking) is likely to take less effort and improve the quality of your writing far more than addressing the bottom three points.

• Write an outline before you start writing your text. This is a plan with the main idea of your text (called the ‘thesis’) and topic sentences for each paragraph.
• Remember that writing is a process – editing and correcting are important. Your ideas will develop and change as you write, so you may need to go back to your introduction to change your thesis. Likewise, as you develop a paragraph you may include ideas that are not included in the topic set out in your topic sentence. You may need to move these ideas to another paragraph or rewrite the topic sentence to include them.
• Write clear topic sentences before you write a paragraph – this will make your writing clear.
• Check that all sentences in a paragraph are about the topic in the topic sentence.
• If you find ideas in your paragraph that are not about the topic in your topic sentence, decide whether you should put them into another paragraph or change the topic sentence to include them.
• Link ideas within sentences and within paragraphs and link ideas within each paragraph. Phrases such as For example, however, on the other hand and as a result make it possible for a reader to see the connection between your ideas. It is possible to make very quick improvements this way.

Read a lot

If you read a lot, you will see a model of language that you will learn a lot unconsciously. However, this will take a lot of time and effort. To maximise your learning for less effort, read texts you enjoy reading, such as novels. This will make learning an enjoyable activity, rather than hard work and as a result, you will probably put more time into it. However, this of course will not be enough. It is likely that you will also need classes, practice and feedback from a teacher.

Read the text types you need to write.

Although reading texts you enjoy will be helpful because you will spend more time experiencing written English, but these texts are likely to be very different from the texts you need to write. Therefore it is also important that you read the text types that you need to write. This will introduce you to the ‘culture’ of your field and give you examples you need to follow.

‘Noticing’ your problems

We naturally judge the quality of our own writing or speaking based on our first language. However, language learning research shows that we need to ‘notice’ our weaknesses or mistakes before we can improve. Having strategies will help you identify these weaknesses and improve. Read on for more information.

Practice and get feedback

Without feedback, it’s hard to measure the quality of your writing. Research also shows that when you ‘notice‘ the differences between your writing and the standard, you can then start to improve. Revising and editing my writing always leads to improvements when I notice mistakes, but I know that ‘good writing’ in Spanish is unavoidably influenced by my first language (English), so I need more reliable feedback.

Get human feedback

The limitations of technological solutions means that you need feedback from a competent speaker of English. Ask a teacher, friend, colleague or paid professional to review your work and to give you suggestions for improvement. While feedback from a native speaker is likely to be helpful, not every native speaker of English is a competent writer, and most will have no training in teaching writing. Even if they are very competent writers, they may not consciously be aware of how they achieve a well-written text. A non-native who is a trained English teacher and a competent user of the language is more likely to be helpful.

Use technology

When you are editing and correcting your writing, technology can help by indicating where there are mistakes. Programs such as MS Word and Grammarly can be useful, but you need to think for yourself: you can’t just accept their advice, because they are sometimes wrong. In MS Word, look for text underlined by Word and right click the underlined word or phrase for a hint which may explain what’s wrong. Where there is an error, make a note of it – in time this will help you make your ‘Error profile’ of the mistakes you make most often.

There are software programs that analyse your writing and give feedback, but unfortunately, I don’t know of any good ones that can be really helpful to non-native speakers. Grammarly is one program that promises big, but unfortunately, a lot of its feedback is either confusing or incorrect. My experience tells me it’s only useful for writers who are already quite advanced and are able to recognise when it gives incorrect feedback.

Marking Mate, a free service provided by XJTLU University in China, is quite good, but unfortunately is not always available.

The important thing is to avoid just using technology to ‘fix’ your writing and then move on without having learned anything. For technology to be really useful, it has to help you ‘notice’ mistakes you make so that you actually learn how to avoid them (see the section on keeping an error profile).

Read similar texts and compare

Different text types use different language to achieve their purpose. For example, an instruction text such as a mobile phone manual uses very different language to the language used to advertise a product or argue an academic topic. When you read example texts in the same style or text-type, you will be able to see how a competent writer uses language for the particular situation. For this reason, it is helpful to read a text similar to one you have just written and compare them. If a model text to the same task is available, this can be very useful (IELTS practice materials often include model answers or imperfect answers with feedback). Ask questions such as:

• “How has the writer made the topic of the text and the direction in which they’ll go clear in the introduction?”
• “How do the topic sentences of each paragraph contribute to the overall organisation of ideas in the text?”
• “How does the topic sentence in this paragraph make the paragraph coherent and guide the rest of the paragraph? What words and phrases has the writer used to achieve this?”

• “How has the writer used linking words and phrases to connect ideas between sentences and paragraphs to create a clear, logically structures and cohesive text? (What words and phrases have they used to ‘glue the ideas together’?)