Guide to Success: How to improve writing skills.
Hello dear students of ALWIUT, today, I decided to start our small conversation in a more direct way because the topic of the article will be one of the most interest inducing and, at the same time, dreaded areas of student life – academic writing. Without no doubt writing is one of the most crucial skills that a student should possess; it could be an indispensable instrument in the arsenal of a professional, allowing to showcase language proficiency and analytical skills much higher than those among the top percentile of standardized tests takers or, it could be nothing but an insurmountable mountain-of-a-task in the hands of a “still green” amateur. Now, the question you first need to find answers for are “What is academic writing?” and “What things should I do to develop my writing skills?”.
As unfortunate as it may be, we are often exposed to a misconception that writing is merely a nonsensical skill required to get a decent score on international English examinations, thanks to the contribution of the so-called self-proclaimed “IELTS experts”. The reality is that academic writing is something you will need throughout your journey through your academic career: from the very beginning (high-school or a lyceum in our case) to the final end (whether it is success and you get into whatever university you want or a failure). In summary, writing is something you will definitely need in your future and, that is why, it is very important to regard it is not as a way to improve English or test scores but a completely different concept, which you will need to constantly pay attention to and strive to improve.
OK, cool, but How do I improve it?
In its essence, writing could be breaking down into two distinct abilities: comprehension of the structure of academic writing and all the entailing shenanigans and, obviously, high language command. I will not go deep into boring details and discuss writing structures and stuff you all already know. Instead, what I want you to understand is that writing is all about making sure that whatever piece of information you pen down on a paper is completely clear for the future reader.
Imagine listening to an academic lecture about an economic situation is some poor country, would the lecturer start from saying that “The country A is poor”? – No, the lecturer is likely start from giving general background on the topic, so that you would understand whatever scientific language and information is used in the presentation. His/her ideas would be connected and it likely that the lecturer would start from general facts and only then progress towards more complicated issues, so that it would be easy to digest all the information.
Likewise, the lecturer will not be saying words like “poor”, “bad” etc. at all, the language used would have more of a neutral nature, meaning that the person would clearly differentiate between facts (things that are 100% correct) and speculations (opinions, predictions and things that are not certain or offensive in any way). With this example, I wanted to emphasize that you need to understand that there are some general rules in guidelines in academic writing (such are hedging, neutral language, progression of ideas and many more) that you might not now yet, and that is exactly what you should pay attention to before you start simply putting down words on a paper.
Finally, academic writing is a very profound and immense concept, which usually requires years of practice to simply come close to mastering, so do not get discouraged if you face failures as you start embarking on the road to leaning it. It is important to practice, but what is even more important is doing it effectively and learning the theory behind the whole system. Good luck in your endeavors everyone and remember to never give up!