Top Ten Writing Tips

You have just got back an HSC English essay, or a History assignment, or even a Visual Arts extended response. 14/20. Not bad, but you know you deserve way more.

The teacher loved the content, but told you that something was a little ‘off’ about your writing. It just so happens that fixing your writing is one of the most draining, difficult and frustrating tasks that you will confront in high school. Further, the only way to ensure improvement is practice, practice, practice – all the way up to the HSC.

But where do you start? James Scutts (a Linguistics major from USYD) provides 10 simple yet effective tips to bolster your writing style and make your expression flow more seamlessly:

1. Cut your writing into easy to swallow, bite-sized pieces:

Keep your sentences, and your phrases within sentences, as short as possible. The worst sentences are the ones that go on forever, with no end in sight, stacking up an almost infinite number of ideas and sub-ideas that should really be expressed in separate sentences all together, making the reader feel violently ill by the time they eventually reach the conclusion (See what I did there?). Rather, propose an idea in one sentence. In the following sentence build on this idea, crescendoing as you make your point. Then bookend what you have just written with another short sentence (Again, notice a pattern?). For those of you that want exact figures, a good guide is around 8 – 20 words per sentence.

2. Don’t be the Microsoft Word synonym generator:

Similarly, use short words, too. No one wants to see words like cognisant, proximal or deleterious in a humanities essay. In place of these, markers much prefer the words aware, near or harmful. On the other hand, if you know some impressive and relevant terminology, such as chiaroscuro (a Visual Arts term meaning ‘light-dark contrast’) or anthropomorphism (an English term meaning ‘giving human characteristics to inanimate beings’), then go for it! Just make sure your choices are not too deleterious.

3. Take the ‘ing’ out of ‘writing’:

Avoid using the ‘gerund’ at the beginning of your sentences – these are ‘-ing’ words like highlighting and conveying. In fact, try to avoid using them as much as possible, although sometimes it is unavoidable. It is not effective at the beginning of a sentence because it is easy to misuse, and sounds a little ‘clunky’ in the middle of a sentence. In the following extract, the incorrect sentence is in red, with the ‘-ing’ word underlined and in bold. Notice how it just ‘hangs’ without coming to a resolution:

  • The poet uses alliteration throughout the entire first stanza of the poem to create a sense of inescapability and repeated struggles experienced in their journey. Highlighting how he cannot find any sense of happiness or resolution in this environment.

4. Get active, shape up your expression:

On a related note to #3, use the ‘active’ tense as much as possible. This one will take a bit of practice to get right, but when you do have it right, it makes your writing powerful, convincing and authoritative. It means writing in the simple present tense (e.g. The poet uses alliteration.) rather than a compound present tense (e.g. The poet is using alliteration) or even using a passive voice (e.g. The poet was using alliteration; The poet has used alliteration). Picking through your entire essay looking for these mistakes can be time-consuming and frustrating, and you may benefit from sitting down with a teacher or tutor to find areas for improvement.

5. Put on your cont(r)act(ion) lenses:

Avoid contractions at all costs. They make your writing sound informal and colloquial, and almost all markers see them as a detrimental feature of your writing. Again, the best way to resolve this issue is to just pick through your writing to find them – there is no quick fix here. Perhaps if you sit down with a cup of tea or coffee when you weed them out, it will make this process easier!

6. Build a strong foundation with the bricks thrown at you:

Tackling a question can sometimes feel like you are being bombarded with an endless string of heavy, dense words (like bricks!). Ensure that you have a well thought-out structure for your writing. It should follow a logical flow, and in almost all cases there should be an introduction and conclusion as the bread to your essay sandwich. Your paragraphs should also be headed by a clear topic sentence, which all sub-points that you make in your paragraph will link back to.

7. ‘Add’ to the ‘verb’ once in a blue moon:

Adverbs. Use them sparingly. I used one just then, so it looks like I will have to take a break from them for a while! In all seriousness, writing gets clogged up when the author squeezes an adverb in every few words. When this happens, it achieves the opposite effect – the writing can become so over-descriptive, that it becomes an effort for the reader to break everything down.

8. Dig a little deeper, don’t just scratch the surface:

Be analytical rather than descriptive. Unless the question asks you to describe something simply (which it will almost never do in an essay), keep your writing argument-driven and evaluative. You should be providing insight and an opinion, rather than regurgitating information.

9. What (kind of) rhymes with “taking possession?”:

ANSWER. THE. QUESTION. A teacher or tutor will hound you for this, and it is certainly one of the hardest things to get right every time you write. A good way to check this is to stop after every sentence and ask yourself the question, “How is this relevant to what I’m saying?”. If it contributes in some way, great. If it does not, either ditch it or shift your focus to make it relevant.

10: Complete your own personal jigsaw puzzle, using the pieces that you want:

Read widely. If you see words and phrases used in context, you will become immersed in examples of great phrasing, interesting vocabulary and different authorial voices. Both consciously and subconsciously, you will begin to internalise bits and pieces of others’ writing, and thus create your own style.