10 Habits of Effective Writers

The first three habits deal with the behavior of good writers and the remaining seven are techniques that writers use to polish their essay and make it better. These techniques and behaviors are only things that I believe make people better writers. They are not my ideas, but simply the ways that I've picked up over the years to improve my writing and will continue to improve my writing in the future.

1. You should always proofread your work over and over again

   Whenever anything that needs to be polished and turned in you should always read your essay over and over to find any small little mistake that could make your writing sound bad. Reading it out loud when you proofread helps because you hear all the mistakes out loud that the reader will detect as they read it. We often don't hear those mistakes when we write because we think it's ok and sometimes writing our thoughts down is difficult. Proofreading will also find fragment sentences, grammar problems, spelling errors, and problems of syntax.
   
   I believe that this is the most important behavior that needs to be drilled into the minds of students in English classes. This is because the slightest rookie mistake could destroy the greatest creations of all time. Basics always need to be looked for and reviewed during the creative process. A great skyscraper could crumble without a strong enough base, the most powerful ship in the world could sink with the smallest crack, and someone writing a college English paper who doesn't understand the difference between its and it's just looks foolish.

2. Reading for pleasure is nice and it subconsciously helps writers create better sentences

   There are many different parts of learning any language like reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Reading helps you pick up what makes a good sentence, improves your vocabulary, and subconsciously engraves this into you. You don't have to read great works of literature to do this because they tend to be boring, but reading any book, piece of poetry, or prose will teach you how good writers write.
   
   Reading is the basis of the English language because it teaches you how to execute the other forms of the English language even better. Anything that's been published has gone through hours of editing by Publishing Companies so it has very few mistakes and published pieces of work are written by writers with talent and good ideas so understanding their work can help you improve your own writing.

3. Give yourself time to write

   Never write an essay or anything without time to edit, revise, and think about it. Always give yourself a few days, weeks, or even months if time permits. Try to write the whole piece in one sitting, but don't try to do the whole writing process during that one sitting. It won't turn out very well, here's a short example of something I wrote the night before for a paper in high school:
   
   Yoda of the Star Wars trilogy was a nine-century-old little green gnome and is probably the most famous science-fiction character ever. As my dad said, no one can understand, or take on the stubby, little, green midget. Yoda was so well trained at fighting and wise that I believe he could wipe the floor with Aragorn. Both were incredibly smart, gifted and talented individuals. Yoda could fight entire armies by himself but Aragorn needed help though. So I believe that Yoda is cooler out of the two.
   
   It was a compare and contrast essay on two current fictional movie characters. I cleaned it up quite a lot since the first time I wrote it, but it was really difficult writing this fairly long essay of two pages in high school. It started out a lot worse. I'm not saying it's impossible to create a highly effective essay in one night, but it'll probably turn you off to writing in the future and you'll be exhausted the next day.

4. Use the time you gave yourself to think, reflect, and improve on your original creation

   It will be backbreaking, mind numbing, and you'll probably want to quit learning how to write and go watch some TV, but writing your whole essay in one sitting is a good thing. Writing the whole essay in one sitting, assuming you started early, gives you plenty of time to do all the other things to improve your essay. Simply writing is only the beginning of the writing process. Looking for mistakes, reflecting on ideas, adding or subtracting parts of the piece, and all the different parts of the writing process make an average unpolished paper into a spectacular paper.
   
   Here's an example of a creative writing piece I wrote for fun with no corrections or anything:
   
   “Avertising is the backbone of the American economy. They help the corporations who employ 75% of the workforce get their product to the public. These G/s that give Ceo's of our nation provide are brought by supply and demand, the backbone of our capitalist economy. Advertising supports that backbone with a diamond hard support by telling who buy what and where to buy it. Advertsing is a good thing and needed by the world”. That was old and I wrote it because I had to write why I hate advertising and then why I like it as fast as I could. Pretty bad, no?
   
   Writing the whole essay in a few hours means that you did not lose track of what you originally set out to write. If you write a page each and every day for four days, you lose track of your best thoughts that you had on the first day. This can be solved in a minor way by creating an outline, but most of your inspiration and creativity is found when you first sit down to write. Also coming back to where you left off takes time. If you just try to just write it, be creative as possible, and not worry about grammar rules, it'll be more fun to create. It also takes less time this way because if you try and look for every spelling mistake it could take a while.

5. Use a pen and paper to write for a first draft if you can

   This works better for shorter writings. Just write whatever you want to say really fast on a piece of paper and then type it up on the computer. It'll be easier for you to write all your thoughts down and you'll read over your mistakes. It'll look bad, but there's less of a brain to hand thought transfer going on with a computer unless you're really fast.
   
   Writing helps you get what you're brain is saying on to a piece of paper or computer file. You won't lose anything you've thought of, it'll be preserved for years to come. Typing it on a computer though or writing with a pencil gives you the option of correcting obvious mistakes. The latter two options are also much slower so you may lose some really good thoughts in the process.

6. Write the meat of the essay first, then conclusion, then the introduction

   Write the body of the essay, then the conclusion because you'll understand it better after the body, and then write the introduction. If you write the introduction first, you won't know what you're going to say, so it'll seem vague and forced. Figuring out what points you want to make will make an introduction pretty snazzy. Here are two examples of introductions I wrote. The first is an example of writing the body, conclusion, and then intro. The second is where I tried to write the intro first.
   
   Introduction Written Last:
   
   According to Wikipedia, Wikipedia is a multi-lingual, web-based, encyclopedia project operated by the non-profit organization, the Wikipedia Foundation. Many Wikipedians enjoy this website shown by the millions of dollars raised by annual Wikipedia Fundraisers. On this website, all content is free and there are over 8.3 million articles in over 250 different languages (Wikipedia). This popular database that often comes up as the first link presented when you Google anything has possibly more information than any other encyclopedia in the world. Yet for some reason many educators, critics, and scholars find this website unethical and unreliable because it can be edited and changed by anyone. My question for all those interested in Wikipedia: Why is Wikipedia criticized so often and are these critics just?
   
   Introduction Written First:
   
   While most children learn to read and write by age seven, I was already beginning my literary journey by the happy age of three with the Berenstain Bears. The Berenstain Bears gave me a head start on all the other kids at school because I could read in kindergarten. That worked great until high school came along and even though it got tougher, that's also when it got good. I started to enjoy books, especially ones with substance like Ayn Rand. That was when I improved my writing abilities with my journal and started to use more new words with precision, which made me more confident with my unique style of humor. My literate life has been filled with many ups and downs as time has gone by, but has produced strong devotion, passion, and many deep reflections that resulted from loving the language.
   
   Writing the middle of the paper first helps you understand what the paper is really about. This will help you write a better introduction to give your paper a good start. Without a good introduction, the entire essay could fall flat. A good introduction is needed to give the reader a good first impression of the piece of writing. An essay is like a sandwich. A spectacular sandwich has each piece as perfect as it can be. No part of a sandwich is unnecessary it all needs to be as perfect as possible.

7. Always describe what you're talking about in specific details before you begin discussing it

   Say every important little insignificant detail about your topic, give as many adjectives and stupid descriptions as possible. If you're going to talk about one of your ideas or someone else's on something like Stem Cells for example, say everything relevant that you know before you present your ideas.
   
   Here is an example of the paragraph I wrote before I went into my ideas on inflation for my Macroeconomics research Paper:
   
   While above average GDP growth is a good thing, it's actually a bad thing to have a highly above average inflation rate. According to Mankiw's (2007) textbook, inflation is defined as an increase in the overall level of prices in the economy and the inflation rate is the percentage change in the price index from the preceding period (Mankiw, 2007). What that means is the amount of purchasing power goes down quicker when the inflation rate is rising more quickly every year. A controlled inflation rate is ok and actually good sometimes, but when it rises too quickly, like with a Hyperinflation rate of 20 to 30%, the economy can suffer because people can barely purchase as much as they want to with their savings or wages (Investopedia, 2007). And with the opposite happening, stagflation, going in the economy, it is most likely experiencing a time of no economic growth.
   
   If you are presenting a new topic to someone painting a clear picture is important. Even if it seems dumb to you, the reader may have no idea what you're talking about and giving them a clear picture will make it more interesting and you will keep their attention. If you just go into your discussion on current inflation issues in America, you probably will lose your readers attention and they'll most likely stop reading.

8. Use the a , b, and c method for listing nouns

   When writing a few different things, list them if they are similar, relevant, and do it in this format. A, B, and C, gives a paper instant style in a simple, effective, and stylish way.
   
   Example of a Satire Piece I wrote: What I can say right now is that we are at war, a war that we've never fought before, a battle against something we can't see, find on radar, or even pronounce correctly. It didn't attack us, fight us, or bomb us, but they are a threat to our national security. We need to bring them to justice and bring freedom to normal, average, everyday Americans from their stranglehold on our values, morals, and virtues. I'm talking about the obesity problem in America.
   
   It won't win you any Pulitzer Prizes to add this technique to your writing, but it does look, feel, and sound good.

9. When writing a conclusion, continually ask yourself “So what?” after every sentence you write

   Conclusions are very difficult to write and I find that it helps to think of one good sentence for starting off then continually asking yourself “So what?” to get the rest of the conclusion. Your subconscious mind will keep spitting out answers for you and if you keep the conclusion working for closure, it'll turn out pretty well.
   
   Example: To summarize, each ad has their merits, but Microsoft wins in the end. The two companies provide very similar products. Phones that let you do more than just call people that are more specifically designed to people that need to do their office work on the way home while their chauffeur drives them and their personal masseur massages their feet. The phones can be purchased by anyone, but by analyzing them and reading them over and over again I have come to the conclusion that Microsoft has a better phone. The simpler phone that offered more in the end won.
   
   If you ask “So what?” after all your sentences you'll probably get a good conclusion. Your brain will tell you what to say and it'll give you the closure you need to finish your essay.

10. Answer the big questions

    Writing can be hard. Especially if you're writing about something you don't really care too much about or it's just so long you've ran out of things to say. Another way to use your subconscious mind to your advantages is to ask questions again. If you don't know what to say just ask your brain a who, what, where, when, or why question. Here's my example of a creative writing piece I wrote of what my perfect community's weather would be like if I could control it.
    
    I would want the environment to be somewhere in the mountains. I like the idea of people in Ecuador and Chile living a top the peaks of the Andes. I would want it to be moderately hot in the summertime and during the winter it would be very cold, but there would be no wind and a lot of pretty snow.
    
    This technique is a psychological one. When we ask our minds a question it will always spit out an answer. Since writing is a psychological process asking it questions can help us write our papers, poetry, and prose. Asking yourselves the big questions about your topic can help the writing process go smoother and it'll probably come out sounding more like the real you.