Successful Writing - a skill you can develop...

Why writing skills important?

People who have good writing skills enjoy an advantage in almost all situations. If you are a good writer, you are always more likely to get what you want. As your writing skill improves, your self confidence also improve. So it is imperative that you put in some effort / invest time, to improve your writing skill as it will be helpful during the student days and later when you write business proposals / reports / speeches/presentations etc.

What are the elements of good writing.

Good writing is clear , well organised , focused to the subject and should adapt to the audience.
If you take note of below 3 points , you will do fairly well with your assignments / reports.

Analyse the subject

Understand the subject well and select a title based on the purpose of the report. Before you start writing, think about the audience and their level of understanding with related to the subject. And also be careful to treat the subject adequately in the limited space. Generally the assignments would be of 10 – 12 pages (2500 – 3000 words) and very broad treatment of the subject will not be possible.

Your writing is CLEAR if your readers are able to understand the ‘real’ meaning you tried to communicate. Write simple / small sentences to communicate the ideas across. Do not write lengthy , complicate paragraphs. You can chose tools like graphs, pictures , different colouring , letter size etc to make your writing more clearer and appealing to readers.

Organize your report well .

The assignment should have good pattern , (a) an introduction (b) central idea and (c) conclusion, a master plan, which holds all parts together.

Suggest to start with a draft as it will help you to summarize the relevant points in a proper order prior finalizing the report. Write a good introduction which forecast your central idea and formulate a crisp /catchy conclusion.

Chose subtitle which accurately reflects the content and it is advisable to cite the source of information. Do not waste the reader’s time by repeating same points and writing unwanted words / sentences.

Check for spelling and grammar mistakes prior finalizing the report. Must do proof reading to correct the mistakes as spelling / grammar mistakes always send wrong signals to the readers.
Write authentically so that your presence will be felt. To write authentically, you should have good understanding of the subject.

Make your work look good

The white space in and around the writing strongly affect the look and readability of your document. Leave proper margins ,sufficient space between the words / lines , columns , paragraphs etc.

Give proper headings and sub headings to your writing. Readers absorb information better when it is arranged into meaningful units and blocks.Use pictures and graphs , wherever needed, to improve the readability / understanding of the document. Do not use too much of graphics / colors , which will spoil the look of the document.

To Conclude...

Let me remind , writing skill can be developed if you invest genuine time / efforts and surely this will pay off handsomely. All successful writers are not born with 'writing talents' , most of them developed it, for which genuine efforts are required.