The writing process must effect a progression from creative, divergent thinking up to precisely controlled prose refinement. Accordingly, we have developed a process that begins with generative writing, moves on to essay assembly and concludes with polishing. This approach provides our clients with a satisfying challenge at each stage, teaches essential writing skills, and helps them better understand what they want to say. This section lays out the writing process as a sequence of cognitive steps: brainstorming, assembling, synthesizing, strengthening and polishing.

Becoming a better writer means putting in the time with words. Reading, writing, speaking and looking into words’ meanings all contribute. No one way of spending time with words is a universal ticket to becoming a great writer. Instead, testing out different ways of studying language helps one discover what works with their mind, schedule, current knowledge and motivation.

Writing and communication is ubiquitous and sources for listening to and reading good verbal material abound.* For this week, we vetted a selection of podcasts that directly address writing and language with content we endorse. Podcasts can be a convenient way to integrate learning into a busy schedule, as they are generally free, widely available and can be listened to while doing other everyday things like commuting or doing laundry.

An essay introduction is a first impression. First impressions are important. Business and psychology sources from Forbes (article link) to the Association for Psychological Science (article link) have recently circulated the notion that people make judgments in the first few seconds of an encounter. The common application of this psychological phenomena is two individuals meeting in person, but an essay, especially a personal essay, can witness the same fast judgment by the reader. Therefore, an introduction to an essay is crucial for a positive reception and should pique interest and build credibility. Unlike an in-person first impression, an essay first impression allows the author to avoid being judged for factors out of their control like ethnicity, gender and age. Instead, they can carefully craft a mix of ideas and personality to nudge their reader to think of them as a human thinker: rational, humane and complex.

The first step towards quality writing is developing a clear structure or outline. While there may be a writer or two out there who can sit down without preparation and compose structured, flowing rhetoric, these are outliers. The majority of us will end up with incoherent ramblings without taking the time to focus on a clear essay structure. You could write one hundred sentences of Shakespearean-quality verse; if they lack conceptual organization, they will fail to convey a strong point.

As with many of the fundamental aspects of writing, making a claim is something we do often in daily conversation. When John says that, “taking the bus to work is better for the environment than driving a car” he is making a claim. A claim is a statement that is used to assert a point or convince the audience or reader of a particular argument. A claim is inherently debatable, and therefore needs reasons or evidence to support it. For example, John might back up his claim by noting that, “more people riding the bus means less cars on the road, fewer emissions, and lower fuel consumption.” The partnership of claims and evidence makes up the essential structure of logic and argumentation.

Blogs comprise a growing and influential corner of the communication world. Not surprisingly, many blogs address writing and can be a source of self-study for the aspiring writer and applicant. This week, we’re addressing a set of connected blogs associated with one of America’s oldest and most well-respected periodicals: The New York Times. As we’ve mentioned in previous posts, open source information on writing can vary in quality. When we include recommendations, we aim to filter out information of poor quality and make some confident suggestions of where you can get good information.

Context changes how one should apply rules and principles in writing. Depending on the discipline, audience, length, format and purpose of a piece of writing, aspects like tone, diction and grammar rules may change. Practice allows a writer to better assess the situation and apply writing rules appropriately. Let’s take an example of a blog and book, both written about alternatives to traditionally-raised beef, and compare how the format and purpose of the writing changes how each author writes.

Fortunately, writing rewards genuine effort. The more time you spend writing (and reading), the better you can write. To illustrate the relationship between effort and results, we might compare writing an important essay, like a thesis dissertation, with running a marathon. Both projects are remarkably challenging and yet have been accomplished by many millions of individuals. Both projects demand a commitment of time and great effort to prepare for and complete the task. As with a marathon, writing a dissertation requires exposure, in the writer’s case exposure to written materials in that field. Where a marathoner must expose their body to the exertion of running longer and more challenging distances, so, too, must an individual expose their mind to the exertion of comprehending and expressing language that is progressively more challenging. Essentially, the more a person’s mind is set up to organize complex ideas into words, the better the written products they will tend to produce.

Before we set out to supply any rules of thumb or clever writing tricks, it’s crucial that you acknowledge that writing, like other complex, skilled work, is not formulaic. Rules of thumb and clever tricks do not, on their own, add up to good writing. Rather, writing is a practice. A practice is a kind of work that requires ongoing time and offers gradual but substantial progress. Unlike learning to tie your shoes or parallel park, which have recognizable endpoints, being a good writer is a long haul and you will continue to move forward, if slowly and sometimes circuitously.