Reading and writing tend to be one of the most fundamental and first skills of a person. Reading helps to understand what the given text is about. It also helps to enable one’s critical thinking, which, in turn, is vitally important during one’s formative years. At the same time, writing aspires to put all thoughts and arguments on a paper in a clear, accurate, and understandable way.
However, plenty of people wrestle with writing essays, papers, and other discourses because they lack proper writing courses. The most basic yet crucial aspect of brushing up your writing skills is through reading books. Read on this article to get to know how to improve your writing.
Styles of Texts
The more you read, the more flexible your writing style is. Needless to say that there is a plethora of literature periods, which have different structures, grammar, and lexicon. By reading them, you become able to write different texts in a different manner. Not only is it useful for your general development, but also it is beneficial when you write essays on literature. It helps you analyze the overall epoch, being original while making various statements.
Moreover, it is crucial to be aware of the styles when writing academic papers. Indubitably, you can’t stick to informal style because academic writing doesn’t tolerate that. Reading diversified literature, you possess robust formal writing skills and can identify formal and informal styles. Even if you face any troubles with that, WritingCheap will guide you through the most significant points you have to follow.
Read Whatever You Want
The most important point is to make the process of reading entertaining. Consequently, it becomes advantageous for your writing skills because you can remember some phrases that happened to surprise you. Also, while reading, try to ask the question, “Can I use these structures/words/quotes in the future?” as it will help you stay focused on your reading.
Indeed, sometimes even the most stunning book tends to be tedious. And sometimes you torture yourself with a thought that it’s going to end soon and a fantastic story will start again. I would recommend skipping the book when you experience boring moments. They simply push you away. You won’t improve your writing by reading unnecessary lines that you will forget 20 minutes afterward.
Take Notes
Our brain can’t forget everything we think is essential. Taking notes will significantly help you memorize the best moments from a specific book that you can deploy in your writing. Besides, one of the best strategies to efficiently take notes and then use it is to regularly take breaks to make notes on what you have read. If during 30 minutes of reading, you stumble upon some words, anecdotes, and so forth that might be useful, make a time-out, jot them down in your copybook.
Besides the improvement of writing skills, taking notes will help you stay organized in your academic path. Students will agree that taking notes is a great way to wrap up the class topic, which is likely to boost their learning productivity during exams. And if becoming a journalist, a reporter, or even a writer is a job you have in view, knowing how to take notes is a must. The ability to take notes can also advance your research skills, writing down only the most significant facts.
Fancy Words
To say nothing of a profound vocabulary, which you can face while reading books. Unfortunately, the vast majority of people possess a poor command of the English language when it comes to vocabulary. Most likely, you won’t catch any excellent words while talking with somebody or reading someone’s texts, dialogues, etc. However, professors require using rich vocabulary in the papers. And they are right. Especially when you need to write some sort of book reviews or other papers when you can speak by yourself.
By reading different books by various authors, you are to find a myriad of eloquent words unfamiliar to others, yet brilliant. Aside from using them during writing papers, you may well use them on a daily basis, bewildering (in a good way, of course) your interlocutors. And, undoubtedly, your overall speech will become more coherent, informative, and literary. Knowing at least the three synonyms to one word will make your essay/speech exquisite and splendid.
Embark On A Discussion
Keep that in mind: to improve your writing, you have to read a lot. And you have to read different literature. When it comes to discussions, you have to find the moment you most disagree with. It can even be better if you become angry or resentful of thought the writer emphasizes. Once you read the take the author follows, you start writing down the arguments against his/her thought, trying to describe why you think on the contrary.
Such a technique is useful while writing argumentative papers, which lets you debunk something, proving wrong, and presenting actual arguments. After you brush up your writing discussions’ skills, you will transit your way of thinking and gathering arguments to spoken words. As a result, you will be able to express yourself more clearly. We all know how vital debates at schools are. They aim to teach students to behave confidently and present relevant thoughts on different subjects.
How Not To Write
Yes, not all writers have amazing styles. No, don’t get me wrong; each and every author is unique in his/her writing techniques. But their writing might be hard to follow and hard to swallow. Imagine writing a 70-word sentence because you adore J. R. R. Tolkien and submitting the paper to your teacher. Most likely, the instructor won’t understand this sentence and will cross it out.
Remember that while writing academic papers or just content for web pages, the shorter sentence is, the easier it is for readers. The previous sentence of mine contains 22 words, which is acceptable. Try not to make your sentences longer than 25 words because it will be hard to understand for teachers and simple readers.
Read Specialized Literature
By specialized, I mean articles, journals on diverse topics. Not only can you find great words regarding specific subjects, but also you will learn the structure of such papers. Indeed, words used in official, verified, and credible articles scarcely will be used in everyday life. But to possess knowledge on how to write formal essays or letters will give you a lot of crucial credit.
To Sum Up
Reading and writing go hand in hand. And it’s important to advance such abilities altogether. With regard to writing, the easiest and most effective way to improve it is through reading. Be it books, articles, or reviews, you are definitely to learn something new in terms of writing. For instance, you can develop your writing style after reading numerous texts by different authors. Reading may well help you write down the most informative summary, making your writing concise and accurate.
Discussion, in turn, places you in a specific situation, developing your critical thinking and making you use specialized language to be compelling. Last but not least, by reading books, you enrich your vocabulary, which makes your speech and writing smooth and clear.
