The process of starting and completing a piece of writing can be a daunting, scary experience with lots of unknown variables. There are many ingredients to achieve successful content in writing, but the most important key to creating great content is being a great writer. Being able to construct grammatically correct sentences is not only a skill, but also a treasure that every writer yearns for. Writing is a skill that can be learned and developed with the practice that comes with conscious steps to improve on for those who are not naturally gifted with the writing talent. Luckily, these days you don’t have to earn a degree after spending years studying before you can learn to write well, there are lots of free, affordable, and available online courses, websites, and software that can help improve your writing.
So here, we will be looking at the major resources you can use to improve your writing skills.
Websites:
We are in the era where the internet is a major source of solving problems for most if not everyone. The internet has various unlimited websites that can help improve your writing skills. You find sites online that improve your spelling, grammar, sentence, and reading skills.
Books:
Books are a great way to improve your writing skills. They give you detailed basic concepts of writing ranging from vocabulary, to poem writing skills, and on the general instruction on writing.
Application:
Phone applications have become one of the easiest ways to improve your writing skills. The apps are easy to download and are accessible anywhere you are because you can carry them on your phone wherever you go. They aid in your writing and sentence structure, formatting, and several other ways.
Writing Courses:
A great way to improve on your writing is to enroll and take courses in writing. This significantly sets you on a right and better course for your writing, especially if you are a beginner. Writing courses are like road maps that direct you on the right paths to take on your writing journey that gets you to your goal, and the more your journey, the better you get.
The courses also help you improve on your essay writing, thesis development, grammar, business writing skills, and letter writing. There are also available online and at study centers.
Internet videos:
You’ll be surprised how much you learn from videos on the internet. There are several sites online that can improve your writing skills like YouTube and Udemy which are famous. You can choose a lecture that benefits your writing and follow through with the step-by-step teachings they give.
Video is one of the best ways to teach effectively.
Having listed the major ways you can effectively improve your writing skills, let us further break down the various resources available online and offline that can make you a great writer.
EssayMama’s Essay Writing Guide
This writing guide is suited for young writers and those who are at the beginning of their writing experiences. It advises with tips designed to help improve both your grammar and writing skills. The Essay writing guide also provides practical pieces of advice that help boost your writing in a grammatical and structural sense.
Although the advice is centered on essays, it can be used for other forms of writing.
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
Bird by bird is a book that is mostly used for creative writing courses in colleges and applies to any genre of writing. It is a great book that shows the step-by-step ways to improve your writing skills with concise advice on drafting prose.
Grammarly
This app excels at correcting your grammar and improving your writing. It identifies common mistakes, and flags unnecessary or overused words that can weaken the pace, strength, and depth of your writing. Over time, it trains you to become conscious of these mistakes and overused words that you start to write more concisely and compellingly.
Grammarly also helps you switch your writing to fit your audiences and market with the use of Canadian, American, British, and Australian English. It helps in correcting the different spellings and grammatical errors in the variant of written English.
The Purdue Online Writing Lab
There are gathered writing resources on Purdue for writers of all ages and levels. It gives access to tools, information, and practice tests that help in improving your writing skills. It covers all writing aspects of grammar, vocabulary, and research.
Using English
For writers who have English as their second language, it is best advised to use this online resource which is particularly ideal for helping learners test their own skills. It is equipped with a list of English idioms, grammar glossary, phrasal verbs, and irregular English verbs.
Sentence Sense
This is an online resource that shows how sentences should be structured and how to work them into your writing. It also teaches the rules of grammar with detailed notes on effective writing.
Hemmingway Editor
When writing, it is best to keep things as understandable as possible. Some persons who are trained in formal writing tend to complicate their writing with stretched or long sentences and difficult words. This makes it difficult for readers to follow and find the interesting elements of your writing.
Although your language style differs depending on your audience, it is best to make your writing suitable for 8th graders, if they can understand your writing, it means it would be readable and easy to understand by the majority of readers.
But those who are used to writing for high-level reading can find it difficult to change that form of writing, and that’s where Hemmingway comes in. it grades your writing for readability score and highlights the places you can simplify.
Simplifying your writing means making your message easier to digest and understand by readers, it passes the message you are trying to convey.
The Writing Center for Writing Studies
This is one of the most advanced online resources for new and upcoming writers and is ideal for writers who are interested in learning specific styles of English and their functions. It also allows for writers to conduct detailed research on the concepts of English, read on the basics of writing and speech, and how to combine both.
Vocabulary.com
If you want your knowledge of vocabulary quizzed, then this is the site to visit. It also has customized vocabulary that can aid you to learn the specific words you need. And we know, stories are words in writing.
Power Thesaurus
Power Thesaurus is crowd-sourced and gives you several alternatives to a word that you have used excessively in your writing. Using varying vocabulary in your work can make it more interesting to read rather than using the same words repeatedly, which can make your work boring, dull, and unprofessional.
Power Thesaurus gives you the options of several words to choose from.
Write Track
Writer’s block is a common factor that keeps lots of writers stuck for ages. Write track helps you create charts and maps that check the progress of your writing and word count daily. It improves your writing skills by keeping you motivated through the daily goal graphs you set.
Grammar Girl
Grammar girl is your quick go-to insight into the history of slang and language differences and answers the quick grammar queries such as “is it ‘sneaked’ or ‘snuck’?”
A Research Guide
This is best for essay writers and has rules guiding essay writing that shows the ways to correctly create sections of your different essay papers.
Copywriting 101
This requires the skills of a specialist to be successful. It improves your copywriting skills if you are writing your content for promoting your brand or for driving conversions. It shows you how to write compelling headlines, persuasive copy, using powerful words, and evoking emotions from your work.
Daily Page
It’s been stated that consistent writing improves your writing skills, and that is what Daily Page offers. It gives you daily writing prompts that get you writing daily, which eventually becomes a habit. It also sets email reminders at a time you choose daily, with ways for you to monitor your word counts every day. This shows you the progress you are making.
The Daily page offers structured writing courses that cover aspects of storytelling and professional writing and editing for bloggers.
Twinword Writer
As writers, there are those moments where you are stuck on a word while writing and can’t figure out exactly how to express the words in your head into your writing, right?
Twinword, an online word processor, automatically detects when you are hesitating or thinking of the perfect word to use, at this point, it pops up a box of suggestions with synonyms for each suggested word. This helps to keep you writing rather than being stuck.
Content Outsourcing
Creating high-quality content for your story or book can be a huge effort and time consuming especially for those who have other jobs besides writing. Outsourcing your story or work to a professional writer can help you ease into other things, it could also be a great business decision if writing all your content is not quite up to scratch.
Friends and Family
Family and friends are some of the best ways to improve your writing. Ask friends and family for honest feedback on your work, speak to outsiders and colleagues, and brainstorm with fellow writers who can also review your writing.
Above all, READ. Reading makes a better writer. If you can read various books, topics, genres, you are sure to become a better writer. You can also pick a certain genre that interests you and get books on that genre and just keep reading.
Reading opens the mind of a writer to understand better what rules and teaching can possibly not portray.
In conclusion, resources are a great way to get your writing sharper, detailed, readable, and appealing to readers irrespective of what kind of writing. Therefore, make it a conscious habit to get better in your writing each day. Learn new ways, expand on old ones, write each day, read daily, and keep yourself on the know with the above-listed resources, find which works best for you and apply them to your writing.
You sure will come out better.
