writting skill

Writing Skills

Getting Your Written Message Across Clearly
A colleague has just sent you an email relating to a meeting you're having in one hour's time. The email is supposed to contain key information that you need to present, as part of the business case for an important project.
But there's a problem: The email is so badly written that you can't find the data you need. There are misspellings and incomplete sentences, and the paragraphs are so long and confusing that it takes you three times more than it should to find the information you want.
As a result, you're under-prepared for the meeting, and it doesn't go as well as you want it to.
Have you ever faced a situation similar to this? In today's information overload world, it's vital to communicate clearly, concisely and effectively. People don't have time to read book-length emails, and they don't have the patience to scour badly-constructed emails for "buried" points.
The better your writing skills are, the better the impression you'll make on the people around you – including your boss, your colleagues, and your clients. You never know how far these good impressions will take you!
In this article, we'll look at how you can improve your writing skills and avoid common mistakes.
Audience and Format
The first step to writing clearly is choosing the appropriate format. Do you need to send an informal email? Write a detailed report? Create advertising copy? Or write a formal letter?
The format, as well as your audience, will define your "writing voice" – that is, how formal or relaxed the tone should be. For instance, if you write an email to a prospective client, should it have the same tone as an email to a friend?
Definitely not.
Start by identifying who will read your message. Is it targeted at senior managers, the entire human resources team, or a small group of engineers? With everything you write, your readers, or recipients, should define your tone as well as aspects of the content.


Composition and Style
Once you know what you're writing, and for whom you're writing, you actually have to start writing.
A blank, white computer screen is often intimidating. And it's easy to get stuck because you don't know how to start. Try these tips for composing and styling your document:
Start with your audience – Remember, your readers may know nothing about what you're telling them. What do they need to know first?
Create an outline – This is especially helpful if you're writing a longer document such as a report, presentation, or speech. Outlines help you identify which steps to take in which order, and they help you break the task up into manageable pieces of information.
Use AIDA – If you're writing something that must inspire action in the reader, follow the Attention-Interest-Desire-Action (AIDA) formula. These four steps can help guide you through the writing process.
Try some empathy – For instance, if you're writing a sales letter for prospective clients, why should they care about your product or sales pitch? What's the benefit for them? Remember your audience's needs at all times.
Use the Rhetorical Triangle – If you're trying to persuade someone to do something, make sure that you communicate why people should listen to you, pitch your message in a way that engages your audience, and present information rationally and coherently. Our article on the Rhetorical Triangle can help you make your case in the most effective way.
Identify your main theme – If you're having trouble defining the main theme of your message, pretend that you have 15 seconds to explain your position. What do you say? This is likely to be your main theme.
Use simple language – Unless you're writing a scholarly article, it's usually best to use simple, direct language. Don't use long words just to impress people.
Structure
Your document should be as "reader friendly" as possible. Use headings, subheadings, bullet points, and numbering whenever possible to break up the text.
After all, what's easier to read – a page full of long paragraphs, or a page that's broken up into short paragraphs, with section headings and bullet points? A document that's easy to scan will get read more often than a document with long, dense paragraphs of text.
Headers should grab the reader's attention. Using questions is often a good idea, especially in advertising copy or reports, because questions help keep the reader engaged and curious.
In emails and proposals, use short, factual headings and subheadings, like the ones in this article.
Adding graphs and charts is also a smart way to break up your text. These visual aids not only keep the reader's eye engaged, but they can communicate important information much more quickly than text.
Grammatical Errors
You probably don't need us to tell you that errors in your document will make you look unprofessional. It's essential to learn grammar properly, and to avoid common mistakes that your spell checker won't find.
Here are some examples of commonly misused words:
Affect/effect
"Affect" is a verb meaning to influence. (Example: The economic forecast will affect our projected income.)
"Effect" is a noun meaning the result or outcome. (Example: What is the effect of the proposal?)
Then/than
"Then" is typically an adverb indicating a sequence in time. (Example: We went to dinner, then we saw a movie.)
"Than" is a conjunction used for comparison. (Example: The dinner was more expensive than the movie.)
Your/you're
"Your" is a possessive. (Example: Is that your file?)
"You're" is a contraction of "you are." (Example: You're the new manager.)
Note: Also watch out for other common homophones (words that sound alike but have different spellings and meanings) – such as their/they're/there, to/too/two, and so on.
Its/it's
"Its" is a possessive. (Example: Is that its motor?)
"It's" is a contraction of "It is." (Example: It's often that heavy.) (Yes, it is this way around!)


Company's/companies (and other possessives versus plurals)
"Company's" indicates possession. (Example: The company's trucks hadn't been maintained properly.)
"Companies" is plural. (Example: The companies in this industry are suffering.)
To learn more about commonly misused words, misused apostrophes, and other grammatical errors, take our Bite-Sized Training session on Written Communication.

Proofing
The enemy of good proofreading is speed. Many people rush through their documents, but this is how you miss mistakes. Follow these guidelines to check what you've written:
Proof your headers and subheaders – People often skip these and focus on the text alone. Just because headers are big and bold doesn't mean they're error free!
Read the document out loud – This forces you to go more slowly, so that you're more likely to catch mistakes.
Use your finger to follow text as you read – This is another trick that helps you slow down.
Start at the end of your document – Proofread one sentence at a time, working your way from the end to the beginning. This helps you focus on errors, not on content.
Key Points
More than ever, it's important to know how to communicate your point quickly and professionally. Many people spend a lot of time writing and reading, so the better you are at this form of communication, the more successful you're likely to be.
Identify your audience before you start creating your document. And if you feel that there's too much information to include, create an outline to help organize your thoughts. Learning grammatical and stylistic techniques will also help you write more clearly; and be sure to proof the final document. Like most things, the more you write, the better you're going to be!



Article Writing Skills - 4 Interesting Steps Boost Your Article Writing Skills
Here are the simple but very effective steps that you need to take in order to take your article writing skills to the next level.
1. Read, read, read. Start by reading as many articles as possible. The topics don't really matter. Your goal here is to expand your vocabulary and to familiarize yourself with other great writing techniques that you can use later on. I suggest that you focus your attention on those articles that were written by renowned online article writers. Don't forget to list down your observations so you will not soon forget about them.
2. Get somebody to mentor you. There are a lot of people who are making money by coaching people who want to learn the ropes of article writing. If you have the money to spare, I recommend that you hire one. This could be one of the best investments that you can ever make. Your coach will give you direct, no nonsense answers to your questions and with his experience, he can surely help in speeding up the learning process. That means, he can help you become an expert article writer in no time.
3. Write as often as you can. Write articles on a daily basis if possible. To make things easier and enjoyable for you, write articles on topics that you love until you get the hang of it. Then, challenge yourself by writing topics that you're not familiar with. Do this over and over again until you patch up the rough edges of your writing.
4. Always ask for feedback. If you really want to know the things that you need to improve on, I suggest that you get your readers to give you feedback. Through this, you'll know your weaknesses and you'll be able to see your articles through other people's eyes.
How to Improve Writing Skills
Good writing skills are essential for a career in Public Relations. A solid foundation in writing basics is good, but to succeed as a professional, it takes practice and commitment. Instructions
Things You'll Need:
· Computer
· AP Stylebook
· Thesaurus
· Dictionary
· Books on writing
1. Step 1
Read books on writing as well as other work by other writers. Most strong writers are avid readers as well. Reading enhances vocabulary, gives insight to other writing styles and techniques and keeps creativity flowing.
2. Step 2
Enroll in classes and workshops to develop your craft. Not only will you learn new methods, but you can network and make contact with other writers as well.
3. Step 3
Proof and edit carefully. Proofreading and editing are essential to good, solid writing. First drafts are rarely going to be your final version.
4. Step 4
Solicit feedback from a trusted friend or colleague. It will help to have a different perspective. Develop thick skin and use constructive criticism and advice to improve your skills.
5.Step 5
Use resources such as a thesaurus, dictionary and AP Stylebook. These are standard writing tools that every writer should have.
6.Step 6
Keep writing. Any writer will tell you that the key to writing is to write every day, even when you don't feel like it.
Having good writing skills can be very useful at times. If you are a student it will be helpful when you are writing a research paper or thesis and for aspiring writers it will be an essential quality. Some could naturally have good writing skills while some may lack it. If you ever feel that you can never gain good writing skills, you are wrong. Everyone can attain quality-writing skills if they try. Here are some helpful tips to improve your writing skills.
Write
Write something each day. If you don’t practice you won’t gain anything. This is very true in the art of writing. You have to keep on writing to brush up your skills. But if you are wondering on what to write about, not to worry as I can give you some ideas. You can write about an incident that happened to you or about anything interesting that caught your eye when you were walking on the street. But if nothing interesting happened while you were strolling, get creative and think of anything to write. It doesn’t matter what you write as long as you attempt to write something.


Take courses
Courses can give you a good guidance to writing. With the rapid growth of on-line courses you can even opt for an on-line creative writing course. Most of the on-line courses would be short and if you are a novice at writing it would be more advisable to pick a classroom course where you can interact with the lecturer.
Join newsgroups
Newsgroups can be very helpful for you as the members can give you advice. By joining a writing newsgroup you could be interacting with the members who could be experienced writers. By sharing information and tips on the craft of writing the experience of joining a newsgroup is interesting and useful.
Subscribe to newsletters
If you ever come across a website where they offer useful writing tips and information for improving your writing, it would be wise to subscribe for their newsletter. Subscribing to newsletters is free and you will get loads of information through the useful articles.
Criticism
Write something and allow it to be read by a critic. If you always write but never show it to someone to read and edit the article, you might not be able to spot the mistakes in that piece of writing. Once you have written the article, proofread the article and check it for errors. Then get a critic (it would be great if the person is an experienced critic) to comment on your work. This would enable the person to give you feedback on your work and at the same time you can learn how good is your standard of writing. Even if your first article gets a lot of criticism do not lose heart. Take the experience as a learning one and remember not to make the same mistakes again.
Read
Reading is another way to help you. You could go to the library to search for books on writing. You can read the non-fiction books on how to improve your writing as such books would guide you along on the essential steps on writing well. Apart from non-fiction books you could also read fiction books of a wide range of categories. This would allow you to observe the styles of various authors and would be helpful to you in the future if you decide to write a novel yourself.
REFERANCE;
http://www.learnenglish.de/improvepage.htm
www.world-english.org/writing_english.htm