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You can have bright imagination, but writing strategies is what will help you organize your thoughts and deliver the information coherently. You can create impressive texts, but sometimes you can lack the inspiration to write. In such cases, it is better to go to the bottom of the process and find out basic writing techniques to help you overcome fear or insecurity.
When you get an assignment from a professor, you can be confused by the complexity of the task. However, it is possible to facilitate the process if you know basic strategies to make the writing both competent and engaging.
Even professional writers can get stuck when they look at the requirements of the task, so it is better to have 35 substantial tips on hand and cope with any challenge. In this article, we will teach you how to get started successfully and make the reader get acquainted with your research until the very end.
Undertaking a study
You can have either various topics to choose, or there may be a particular theme to research, but you still need to perform great and exhaustive research to find as much information possible. It will help you develop the topic coherently and sound professional.
To manage the task, look through the following list of tips to help you.
- If it is possible, try to pay attention to the aspects that are of great interest to you. Even if there is an assigned topic, make sure to take a different perspective, and describe the phenomenon from another angle.
- Asking for help seems to be the most obvious advice that we can give you. If you feel embarrassed by the task or unconfident concerning different things, feel free to contact your professor to get more detailed insight.
- Use the Internet and other resources at their full capacity. If there are any links in the requirements, make sure to check them, since these should be credible ones. You can also conduct your own research and find out various facts to add to your paper, but be sure that this information is written by true experts.
- When you carry out your research, don’t forget about libraries where you can find an abundance of valuable materials and, thus, impress your professor with unusual findings. While other students get bored with books and do not want to go to the library, you can free some time in your schedule and dedicate it to research printed sources of information. You will eventually find there something unique and important for the topic.
Let’s get started
It often happens that students feel uncertain about where to start since the process looks so scaring, but there should be no room for hesitancy. You need to have a good topic or at least the slightest idea what is interesting for you, but that’s only the beginning.
Being able to analyze the information and sift through it to get to the bottom of the topic is crucial as well. When you implement effective brainstorming strategies while researching the topic, you can select only relevant data to include in your research.
These techniques will help you manage the scope of unnecessary information and organize the report.
- The free-writing technique is really helpful when you need to sort out the things and frame the most important aspects. You need a piece of paper and a pen. Think of the selected topic and write down everything that immediately comes to your mind without caring too much about punctuation or grammar. This flow of thought will help you understand where to stop and which aspects to consider first. Set a timer and let your consciousness generate the ideas. When the time is over, you should check the writings and pick up the most appropriate ideas.
- Mind-mapping is another way to make your brain generate interesting and out-of-box ideas to complement your research. You need to write obvious questions to the topic and then develop your train of thought to branch out to other insights.
- Make the information more structured by creating coherent paragraphs. First of all, note how many information blocks you need, and then distribute the information between these paragraphs.
- The final stage will be creating a topic sentence for the paragraph to provide a summary of the content it presents. Try to briefly describe in a few words what you are going to discuss in the next paragraph to give the reader at least some idea of the subtopic.
Now, it is time to move to the main section.
Writing itself
This is an inevitable part, and you should not be afraid here if you managed with the two previous steps, which were conducting research and structuring the information.
Regardless of your thorough preparation, you still are uncertain about how to write and what are the best ways to deliver the thoughts correctly. For this purpose, we have compiled a list of writing techniques that will be useful for you.
- Try to prefer the use of the active voice when it is possible and does not sound weird. The case is that passive voice use is less frequent and desired informal research writing since active voice sounds more to the point.
- Try to show the doer of the action and avoid the use of these common ‘there is’ and ‘there are’.
- When you start discussing an event or a phenomenon, you should be precise and objective with the grammar features that you use. Try to omit the use of “It has been” structures since the reader then is confused with the uncertainty. For this reason, try to include the doer and, if possible, its name or post.
- Redundant words may be appropriate for some fiction, but here you should take advantage of correct and relevant word phrases. If you make the text full of obvious words with the same contextual meaning, the writing will not look professional.
- Don’t confuse the reader with too complex sentences. Include new information consequently, so that the text is clear and easy to understand.
- Be precise with what you put into the text and include only relevant information.
- Try to be concise and deliver the information clearly.
- Accuracy should guide you through the whole process since if you mess up with some facts, you can lose the credibility of your readers.
- Your task is to be objective and respect the reader. Do not show any kind of prejudice, and try to be impartial. You need to present the topic as it is without exaggeration.
- When you let your mind flow, do not interrupt to edit some mistakes. You should postpone editing and concentrate more on the content itself.
- If the introductory part is difficult for you at first, you can definitely skip this step and come back to it when the paper is almost done. This way, your introduction will be more informative and complete.
- If you need to make the right impressions, you should be inventive with your writing. It means the text cannot be dull or tiresome. Make it engaging using various synonyms to the words or word expressions. It is an easy but effective way to impress the reader and freshen the text.
Stay focused
If you want to come up with a good piece, you should concentrate on the topic and alleviate any distraction that can bother you while writing. When you stop concentrating and start your procrastination activity, it affects the quality of the text and makes you waste your precious time.
To meet this challenge, you need to realize the way your brain works. These tips will help you stay motivated and minimize the influence of the surrounding noise.
- Ultradian cycle is a cycle that alternates concentration stages with the time when you need to rest. Thus, you are supposed to work for around 90 minutes and then have a 20 minutes rest. This way, you are more likely to stay motivated and ready to continue working at the same pace.
- These short breaks should be useful, as well. You can exercise or dance, for example. It will loosen your muscles and help refresh the brain. Try something new or simply go for a walk. A few minutes to breathe in the fresh air will positively affect your project.
- If you are forced to work in a place where there are many distractions, you can take advantage of music. Try not to sing by yourself, since it will only make the process less productive, but listening to some relaxing or instrumental melodies can really help you release the tension.
- If you do not need access to the Internet now, then you should turn off your phone or at least mute social media accounts to help concentrate on the task. Stay hydrated, but avoid drinking too much, because often walks to the bathroom will influence the process as well.
- To stay motivated, imagine what you will do when you are done with the research or any form of writing. You can plan ahead and keep a bit in mind until you finish the assignment.
- Make use of this Carrot and Stick approach to achieve better results. If you start on time, you should praise yourself, but if you miss the time, do not hesitate to punish yourself as well. Stick is something that you don’t like that much. These options should not be too harsh, but they have to be severe enough to make you stick to the schedule. On the other hand, do not be soft too much.
- If you still do not have enough motivation, you can think of the worst scenario that will happen if you mess up with the task. For some students, it may really work.
- Competition is another method to generate some heat and make you work harder. This is not the most effective way, but it will still add some competitive spirit to the game. Thus, ask some of your classmates to compete with you and see who will manage the task faster.
After writing activity
Now you have finished the most complicated and exhausting stage, and it is perfect. However, this still does not mean that you are done with your paper and can finally breathe out. You still have too many things to do before you can call it a day. There are a few after-writing strategies to help you enhance the writing and create the best copy.
- The next step is mandatory and should not skip a bit. If you avoid this step, you can fail the task and forget about high grades. This step includes proofreading. When the main part of the task, i.e., writing, is done, you need to gain even more patience and edit the text. Looking through the whole text and making changes to its parts is necessary to improve the quality of the paper. The best way to proofread the text is to start with massive aspects, such as structure and overall text organization. When you sort out this stuff, you can go into more details and point out more scrupulous things, like grammatical, stylistic and punctuation features.
- Formatting is crucial, as well. For starters, you need to review the requirements one more time and look at whether there are specific conditions in terms of formatting since formatting can be a decisive factor during the assessment. Font and margins should be executed in accordance with the rules that your professor includes in the task. You should also draw attention to other details to insure great final results.
- To make your research look professional, you need to include references and citations used in the text. To do it correctly, you need to ask your professor about the citation styles appropriate for this kind of task and whether there should be any amendments to the official rules.
Practice variants
We have tried to perform you the most exhaustive list of recommendations that you can follow to come up with the perfect text version. However, if you still do not know how to introduce these strategies in your writing process, you can practice. It means choosing a random topic and writing practice essays to develop your own style and figure out the main challenges. Obviously, it will take some time, and you may consider this activity useless, but first try. It is definitely worth your efforts, since the more practice you have, the better job you will do with the real task.
- To make sure you are well prepared for real writing, you should try a few times to gain proficiency. Therefore, it is better to choose a few topics and write practice essays not to get grades but to be more confident in writing.
- To facilitate the process and save some time, you can find topics for practice essays on the web. Try to surpass your actual level and create an essay on a more challenging topic. It will train you more and help develop appropriate skills.
- Learn about the five-paragraph essay structure. This is a basic method used by writers all over the world. This method helps organize the material correctly and incorporate all necessary and important information concerning the selected topic. Thus, if you feel uncertain about your level of writing, find out more about this method, and try to use it when writing practice essays.
- Try to keep in mind all the criteria that the professor will have to check. It considers content, style of your writing, and grammar.
You should not feel confused when it comes to writing an assignment since there is nothing to be afraid of. This is a regular process that you will have to do if you are a student or a worker. You should understand the essence of the process and its main steps to become better. Even if you lack some knowledge or talent, being aware of basic writing strategies will help you come up with a perfect and informative piece of writing.
We have managed to list all possible writing strategies to help you sort the things out and develop your own approach. These are easy steps that should be done if you need good and structured work. The strategies are described with plain language, so it will be easy for you to grasp the main idea of what we wanted to tell.
Try to be persistent with writing, and you will see great results soon!