How to Improve English Writing Skills

If you're wondering about how to improve English writing skills, then you're at the right place. You're going to learn all you need to know about improving English writing skills in this post.

English writing skills refer to the abilities you need to master to effectively communicate with others in writing mode. These skills include learning vocabulary, grammar and punctuation marks and avoiding common grammar mistakes in writing in English.

This article covers:

1. What are English writing skills?
2. Why learn English writing skills?
3. What are the challenges in writing?
4. Different types of writing in English 
5. How to practice writing in English?
6. Resources to improve English writing skills
7. Conclusion: how to improve English writing skills

What are English Writing Skills?

English writing skills are the skills or abilities you need to have in order to express your thoughts and ideas through writing them in English. In other words, to express your thoughts and ideas, you can either speak or write. English writing skills are the abilities that help you write and express your ideas effectively and efficiently.

English writing skills include the following things:

1. Finding the topic: You can't think of writing in English before you find a topic. To find a topic for your writeup, you can look at the existing topic. For instance, you have advancement of technology.
2. Doing a deep research: Once you've found the topic, you should do a thorough research in order to find ideas about the topic you're going to write. This will give uniqueness to your writing.
3. Drafting rough notes: When you do a thorough research, you come across hundreds of related ideas about your topic if not thousands. You should note the ideas that best fit your topic.
4. Creating an outline: After you've gathered the ideas, you can move to the next step which is making a structured outline for your topic. This outline tells you where and how you should place a particular idea.
5. Using right vocabulary: You have created your outline for your topic. Now it's high time that you start writing. When you write, make sure to use contextual vocabulary in your English writing which beautifies your writing.
6. Avoiding grammar mistakes: While writing in English, you need to make sure that you use correct grammatical sentences and avoid grammar mistakes. This act is essential to fit the taste of your readers.
7. Revising and editing: The last but the essential thing you need to do is to revise and edit your writeup. This act ensures that your writeup is free from mistakes at grammar, vocabulary and idea levels.

Why Care about English Writing Skills?

As a learner of the English language, you have to focus on four core skills of the language: reading, listening, speaking and writing. While reading and listening are the sources of input, speaking and writing are tools of output. Therefore, you need to focus on both speaking and writing skills.

English writing skills give you a lot of opportunities at academic and professional levels. Writing in English improves your language proficiency which provides you with the following benefits:

1. Enhances communication skills: Writing is a mode of communication. Practicing writing in English enhances your English communication skills. 
2. Boosts academic opportunities: English writing skills also benefit you at academic level providing you with a great deal of academic opportunities. 
3. Increase career opportunities: If you practice writing in English, it opens doors to a lot of career opportunities. You become a content writer for instance.

However, there are several challenges you have to face when you embark upon the English writing journey. We discuss below the writing challenges and practical solutions to them.

What are the Writing Challenges?

Writing in English seems straightforward but it is not so actually. While reading this post, you may find it very easy. However, a lot of planning and effort went into producing this writeup.

When you start writing in English, you face challenges such as you commit grammatical errors and can't think of the right vocabulary or organize your ideas properly. 

Below are the common challenges beginner writers face:  

1. Grammar errors: One of the most commonly faced challenges when writing in English is that new writers commit grammatical errors either knowingly or unknowingly. The reason is that they perform several actions at the time of writing; for instance, they focus on organizing ideas, choosing the right vocabulary, maintaining coherence, etc. 
2. Vocabulary issues: When writing in English, new writers face a lot of issues at vocabulary level such as choosing the vocabulary that is not a good fit for the situation, committing spelling mistakes or using one in place of the other which happens in the case of confusing words.
3. Issues with sentences: Mistakes at sentence level include misusing the clause structures, using fused sentences, committing subject verb agreement errors or using misplaced modifiers, etc.

Addressing the Writing Challenges

Before you can successfully produce quality writeups, you need to fix the most common writing challenges. Here are the solutions to your writing challenges:

1. Increase vocabulary: In your writeups, you express your ideas with the help of words. Your ideas dressed with your words. The more powerful words you have, the more successful your writeup becomes. Learn contextual vocabulary words that best fit your ideas.
2. Master grammar rules: You can't even imagine attempting to write without the knowledge of English grammar rules. When you learn vocabulary, you learn information container. Mastering grammar rules allows you to put that container in the right place.
3. Learn Sentence and paragraph structures: Both sentence and paragraph structures are important when it comes to writing in English. You must have proper knowledge of sentence and paragraph structures. You need to learn simple, compound and complex sentences for writing in English.
4. Use idiomatic expressions: To naturalize your written English, you need to be in the habit of using idiomatic expressions in your writeups. Idiomatic expressions make your English writing natural. 

Different Types of Writing in English

There are several types of writing in English. However, English writing has the following four main types:

1. Narrative Writing

Narrative writing refers to a type of writing that presents information in the form of story. It includes characters, settings, themes, dialogues, etc. The examples of narrative writing include stories, novellas, novels, etc.

2. Persuasive Writing

Persuasive writing is a type of writing which aims at convincing the readers by supporting pieces of evidence and references. The examples of persuasive writing are job letters, recommendation letters or essays.

3. Expository Writing

Expository writing is a style of writing that offers factual information about people, places or things which may be in the form of statistics or results. The examples of expository writing include scientific and technical writings.

4. Descriptive Writing

Descriptive writing is a type of writing that uses literary devices such as similes, metaphors, personifications, etc., in order to create a clear picture in the mind of the readers. This type of writing is descriptive; that is, it describes something clearly. The examples of descriptive writing include poetry, plays or novels that are fictional and imaginative in nature.

How to Improve English Writing Skills?

English writing skills require you to be good at many things at one time. You need to learn vocabulary, grammar, punctuation marks and involve in other actions such as doing research, drafting notes, outlining, etc. You can certain improve your English writing skills with time and patience. Here are the top 10 general writing tips for English learners:

a. Find an appropriate topic

b. Conduct a thorough research

c. Draft rough ideas

d. Write a structured outline

e. Organize your ideas

f. Write short paragraphs

g. Use contextual vocabulary

h. Revise and edit 

i. Find someone to give feedback

j. Practice writing daily

Best Resources to Improve English Writing Skills

When you follow the tips provided in the article, you need to use a lot of resources which you can use to enhance your English writing skills. Written English requires you to use multiple resources to finetune all the essential skills of writing in English. Here are the types of top 3 resources:

a. Use online resources, books or courses.

b. Use reading materials to improve English writing.

c. Use online websites or apps for writing practice.

Conclusion: How to Improve Writing Skills

To summarize what has been stated, English writing skills refer to the abilities that the writers need to own in order to produce engaging writings. These skills include learning a wider range of vocabulary, grammar rules, improving research, drafting and editing abilities. 

As a new writer, you may encounter a lot of issues when you start writing. The issues range from your language skills to the knowledge of other aspects of writing such as conducting a deep research or drafting rough notes. Therefore, you need to make sure to address these issues to be better at writing in English.