Some Tips for Good Writing
Posted July 7th, 2014
For many professionals, writing is an important part of the job. This may include everything from emails to projects to research to presentations and reports.
And sometimes it is difficult to get going. You may have a mass of information and are unsure how to present it. You may not be sure how to organize or prioritize. So, for those who have ever experienced problems getting their writing projects off the ground, which is most of us, here are a few tips.
1. Make a mess and then clean it up.
Take a page from the fiction writer’s notebook – writing, as John Updike liked to say, is rewriting. You are never going to get it perfect the first time around. That is what rough drafts are for.
Your first rough draft is simply to get your ideas down on paper, to start to give your concepts some kind of form. Don’t worry about grammar or punctuation or even the flow of the piece at this point. This is the making a mess part. The first draft will be messy, and that’s OK – no one will ever see it anyhow.
Then comes the cleaning it up part, the rewriting. It is a bit like molding clay. After you have got something down on paper, then you go back and rework it, improve it, get it to where you want it. It may take several drafts to get there.
2. Make a plan.
You need to plan before you start writing how your piece is going to be organized. It doesn’t need to be anything elaborate. You can do it in the form a list, jotting down keywords. Or you can make a simple outline.
This is important to see where you are going to go. Without it, you may get off to a good start, but then find yourself lost and floundering halfway through.
And it is important to remember that your plan is not set in stone. If as you write, you find you need to change things around, that’s OK too.
3. Break it down.
To make your project more manageable, break the whole thing down into sections, and focus on writing one section at a time. This will not only help you better organize your presentation, but it will also make it easier to write – by focusing on just one section at a time, you won’t feel so overwhelmed.
4. Take breaks and keep a notebook.
Make sure you take breaks as you write because your focus and creative energy need to be replenished by taking a rest. Also, keep a notebook with you because ideas and inspiration may strike when you least expect, and if it does, you want to be ready to write it down so you don’t forget it.
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