You’ve got a bright idea and you want to put it into words. Unfortunately, you lack the talent to do so. You’re not alone in this predicament. Many people struggle with writing, and it often gets in the way of them living their dreams. You can avoid this predicament by learning how to use writing to your advantage.
The Positives Of Using Writing
Let’s take a step back and look at the positives of using writing.
- Self-expression
- Determining your creative voice
- Determining your message
- Developing your arguments
- Gaining confidence
The Negatives Of Using Writing
While there are many benefits to using writing, there are also some significant drawbacks. If you’re not careful, writing can keep you stuck in a rut. It can also make you feel less connected to your audience. Lastly, writing can be a time-consuming task, and it takes a lot of resources to be able to do it effectively. Before you start writing, remind yourself of these potential pitfalls.
How To Use Writing To Your Advantage
Now, let’s look at how you can use writing to your advantage.
- Do your research
- Plan your story
- Experiment With Different Styles
- Develop your thesis statement
- Find your voice
- Choose the right words
- Avoid plagiarism
- Be Creative
- Practice
Do your research
When you’re writing, you must perform thorough research to back up your claims. Throwing together a series of words without any supporting evidence is simply not good enough. You need to make sure that everything you write is backed up by reliable information or experience. Check out these websites to research the information you’ll need for your story:
- WebMD for medical information
- Oberlo for legal information
- A good dictionary to define words
Plan your story
Even if you have a brilliant idea for a story, you still need to put it into a format that others will find useful. There are several different types of writing, and you can’t effectively choose just one. The perfect blend of all of these elements is narrative non-fiction, or NNF for short. Narrative non-fiction combines science with narrative to create a unique voice that resonates with readers. NNF was the most popular writing option at Job.edu among our prospective employers. Here’s the rub: You’ll need to experiment with different styles to find out what works best for you. Your story may require a different approach than most academic papers you’ve written. Don’t be afraid to try out new styles to find the one that works best for you.
Styles To Try
With no clear rules or guidelines, you’ll need to experiment with different styles to find the one that works best for you. Just like with anything else in life, there are different ways to do things, and all with their pros and cons. Some of the styles you might want to try are:
- Nerf Wars – An Academic perspective on gun control (This is the style we recommend for most students. Using a combination of facts, figures, and academic arguments to back up your claims, this is a style that makes your paper stand out. If you want to write an article for a popular magazine or news website, this is the style you should opt for.
- Mad Scientist – Similar to the nerf wars, but with a focus on alternative energy sources (We’ve had success with this style for tech-related articles). The key components are very similar to the nerd wars style, but with an added twist – usually, the scientists are the characters, rather than just the subjects of the story. This can make for some quirky reading!
- Modern Day Fairy Tales – A behind-the-scenes look at the Disney Princess movies (The perfect blend of historical details, a dash of magic, and strong characters). This is a very popular choice with students, who often cite it as the inspiration for their own stories).
The style you choose should match your article’s intended audience. If you’re writing for an academic audience, go with the nerf wars style since that’s what the majority of your readers will be used to. On the other hand, if you’re trying to write for a popular blog, go with the mad scientist style – you’ll end up surprising your audience with your unique take on science.
Find Your Voice
As you start to write your story, you’ll need to find your voice. This is the unique style, tone, and approach that makes your work special. In order to do this, you can experiment with different words and phrases to see what resonates best with your intended audience. Your own words will probably not sound as good as you think they do, so it’s highly likely that you’ll have to replace some of them with synonyms or antonyms. The last thing you want to do is write a dull, uninteresting piece. To find your voice, take some time to read over your article and ask yourself these questions:
- Is this entertaining?
- Is this informative?
- Does this make sense?
If you can honestly answer “yes” to all of these questions, you’re on the right track to creating a piece that will become memorable. Once you’ve found it, you’ll be able to write in a way that is both unique and entertaining.
Develop your arguments
As you become more experienced as a writer, you’ll gain the skills to develop your arguments. Just like with any other part of your writing, you’ll need to back up your claims with reliable information or experience. The best way to do this is to provide references. If you’re writing for an academic audience, you’ll need to make sure that these are reputable sources so that your work can be cited properly. The same goes for essays or reports that you’ve written for class. In other cases, you may want to put in a quick footnote to acknowledge the sources of your statistics or facts.
The Positives Of Using Computers
Although writing a paper by hand can be a painstaking task, it doesn’t have to be. Thanks to technological advances and the flexibility of the internet, we live in a golden age of writing. Hand-writing antiquated within months as computers make a mockery of spelling and grammar. Thanks to advances in artificial intelligence, machines can now write captions, essays, and even entire books. This brings us to our next point:
- Efficiency
- Convenience
Computers are incredibly efficient tools when it comes to writing. Even if you’re not blessed with incredible typing skills, you can use software to complete your work for you. Some of the most popular typewriter replacement software is:
- Grammarly
- Evernote
- Microsoft Word
Convenience
With the increased efficiency and decreased time-consuming nature of computers, it follows that writing for longer periods of time would become less of a chore. Thanks to cloud technology, you have the added flexibility of being able to work remotely. Even if you don’t have a fancy desktop or laptop computer, you can use a virtual private network (VPN) to securely connect to the internet wherever you may be. This allows you to work remotely and access all of the advanced writing tools available to you.