4 Ways to Improve Your Writing This Year

1.) Find a Peer-Editing Buddy

You may have a friend who has the same major as you, works in the same department, or just has a similar interest in improving his or her writing skills. Reading each other’s work can help you both in a variety of ways. First, it’s always beneficial to have an extra set of eyes on your work to catch mistakes, both large and small—even the greatest writers need editors. Second, knowing you are going to get your friend’s input should be motivation to get a first draft done earlier and to work a little harder on it. It’s like having a workout buddy: you can help keep each other accountable!

2.) Read a Style Guide

Yes, this may seem kind of boring—but devoting the short amount of time it will take to read a time-tested guide will pay off. Garner’s Modern English Usage, for example, has more than 900 pages that cover almost every topic you could imagine. If that seems too daunting, you could try one of the thinnest of tomes: Grammar Girl’s 101 Misused Words You’ll Never Confuse Again. It covers the most common errors, and at one tip a day, you’d be through it by tax time. Popular books can also be informative as well as entertaining. Woe Is I, The Elephants of Style, and Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing, all mix humor with writing advice. In addition, if you’re in a profession that involves writing in a certain style for academic or professional purposes (say, AP style for journalists, Chicago style for book writers, or APA style for social scientists), you may want to add those style guides to your reading list. Put a book on your nightstand or an ebook or audiobook on your phone, and go through one book entry or one page each day. It takes almost no time at all.

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3.) Write for Fun

No, seriously. There are people who love to write, but many people only do it when they have to. When the only practice you get at a skill is when you’re under deadline pressure, you may not be doing your best work or enjoying it. So, think about something you might actually want to write: Maybe you have a hobby you could blog about, or you enjoy writing online reviews of places you’ve visited. Even if it’s for no one’s eyes except yours, that’s OK—the point is just to get the words flowing. The act of writing for pleasure is different from writing for a school assignment or for work, but it’s still something you can use to improve your skills and feel more comfortable with the process. If you are stumped as to what topics you’d like to write about for fun, try using a writing prompt like the ones on this comprehensive list.

4.) Make it a Game

Finally, identify a specific area of your writing you’d like to improve, then challenge yourself to find as many improvements in that area as possible, and put a Post-It note on your computer or desk to remind yourself of the goal.

Say you tend to be unnecessarily wordy. Once you’ve written a first draft, challenge yourself to go through and reduce your overall word count by five percent by streamlining your language. Or, if you tend to repeat certain phrases or words, challenge yourself to replace each repeated use with a different variation (for some tips on avoiding redundancy, read this). A thesaurus can be your best friend for exercises such as these— just don’t go overboard subbing in words that are too out of the ordinary!

If you implement even a couple of these four suggestions, you can be almost assured that your writing will improve with just a few minutes of extra effort each week.

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Lora Wegman is a contributing writer for Varsity Tutors, a live learning platform that connects students with personalized instruction to accelerate academic achievement.