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8 Tips to Improve Your Writing in English

Hi, I’m Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com. Are you ready to improve your writing skills? Let’s talk about it. Are you ready to write like a pro? Today, let’s talk about my top eight tips to help you improve your writing skills. If you ever need to write business emails, write academic essays, write essays for English exams like the IELTS exam you need to practice perfecting your writing skills.

Throughout these eight tips you’re going to see that in general writing emails is more relaxed and more informal than writing essays. When I write to my tax accountant, when I write him an email, I say, “Hi George.” And I keep it clear and simple. He doesn’t have much time, I don’t have much time, so this is the best way to write emails. But for essays it’s a little bit different.

If you’re taking the IELTS exam or another English exam, you can’t write just a few sentences. You can just use bullet points. You need to write four paragraphs, maybe more. But the same general principle applies. Every word is valuable and powerful. So you can use these eight tips to make sure that your language, your writing, impresses other people, is clear, and is easy to understand.

Let’s talk about them. My first four tips fall under the category of don’t use repetitive or undescriptive phrases. Every word needs to be powerful, so if you are repetitive or if you are not describing something with each word, you don’t need it. You need each word to pack a punch. Pack a punch is a great idiom that means powerful, you need each word to be powerful. Let’s start with the first tip.

First tip is to avoid using the word I. In emails it’s gonna be necessary, you’re gonna have to say, “I’m writing you to follow up about something.” Emails, no problem, but in essays, no way. Especially essays that are not about your personal opinion. Let’s take a look at a quick example. Let’s imagine that you’re writing an essay based on the topic what are the advantages and disadvantages of social media?

You might think that you’re talking about your opinion and you should start with, “I think that social media …” But in reality, cut out I think. Start with social media, and then you can go on to create a beautiful sentence, “Social media often creates the illusion of relationships while leaving users feeling empty inside.” Great, this is descriptive, it packs a punch, and does not use the word I.

Number two is contractions. When you’re writing an email it’s perfectly fine to say, “The director isn’t available at 4PM.” But when you’re writing an essay, an academic essay, an IELTS essay, an exam essay, no way. Try to write out the full words. For example, the graph does not show which product sold first. Great, you didn’t say, “The graph doesn’t show.” Instead you said, “The graph does not show.”

Excellent. Simple tip, avoid contractions in essays. Number three tip is kind of big. It is avoid boring beginnings. For example, there is, there are, first, second, third. These words don’t pack a punch, like I said. They’re not powerful. So instead of writing, “There are many reasons why coffee is popular.” You could say, “Coffee is well loved for three reasons.” Excellent. Each word is powerful.

So what should you use instead of first, second, third? How about some more interesting, expressive, and advanced expressions like first of all, first off, to start with. Great, you’re showing that your vocabulary is beyond just those basic words. And a little bonus tip. If you’re writing an essay and you have limited time to write the essay, I recommend when you’re practicing, memorize five great linking expressions and use these every time that you write an essay or as many times as possible, so that you can include them and know that you’re using great vocabulary.

Here are my top five favorite linking expressions. As for, another point to consider is, having said that, therefore, to conclude. My fourth tip for avoiding repetitive and undescriptive words is to avoid the passive voice in essay writing. The passive voice has a great place, there are times when you should use it. You can watch my video up here to make sure that when you use it it’s the right time.

But when you’re writing an essay, this is not the time. Let’s take a look at a sample sentence. The reason why the TV show stopped was because it was boring. No, this is not powerful. This does not pack a punch. You’re using the passive voice. The reason why the TV show was stopped, it sounds academic but it is not powerful. How can we change the sentence to be active voice?

Viewers stopped watching the TV show due to the predictable story. Much better. Much better. Here we have the subject doing the action. Viewers stopped. This is powerful. This packs a punch. Viewers stopped watching due to a predictable storyline. That’s another great expression, due to. My fifth, sixth and seventh tip are things that you should do. The fifth tip is to stay on topic.

You’d be surprised how many times my students have started to write about something and then they’ve switched to something else in the middle of the paragraph, and then gone back, and my mind is just going to explode as I read it. So, make sure that you stay on topic. And this is true for emails as well. Are you writing about Friday’s shipment? Stick to that topic.

If you have multiple topics, just use bullet points. I’d like to email you about … Great, use those bullet points to be clear and precise and short. Of course in an essay you’re not gonna use bullet points, but if you have a topic for that paragraph, stick to it. Let’s imagine that you’re talking about some of the reasons why coffee is well loved, and your first reason is that people enjoy getting that boost of energy from coffee.

Great, stick to that topic. Stick to the boost of energy, that good feeling that people get. Don’t talk about addiction, don’t talk about taste, stick to that topic. My sixth tip to do is to summarize at the end. If it’s an email that’s only a paragraph, write a one sentence summary.

I look forward to talking to you again at 9AM on the 15th. Beautiful. If it’s an essay that’s a couple of paragraphs, write a three to five sentence summary. Excellent. Don’t forget this tip, it’s so valuable. My seventh tip, do not forget, is to check your writing. If you’re writing an email there is a big difference between we are choosing to cancel our contract and we are not choosing to contract.

Take a few seconds to read over your email before you send it. And for an essay, if you have one minute left, if you have 30 seconds left before you need to turn it in, read over it. Read over it as many times as you can. Check your writing. My eighth tip and final tip is a bonus, it is to write every day. Just like with speaking, if you wanna improve your speaking you need to speak little by little every day.

If you wanna improve your writing, you can’t improve your writing just by studying for three hours one day before your exam. You need to practice little by little every day. So how can you do this? One of the easiest ways is to just simply keep a journal. Every day when you get ready to go to bed, sit down and write a couple sentences about your day.

Or if you wrote an email to your boss that day, think about what you said and try to write it in English. Try to write with that same formal tone. Or if you’re taking an exam soon, write that essay. Practice that essay as much as possible. When you practice day by day, your skills will increase, you’ll be motivated to continue because you’ll see your progress, and in the end you really will improve. And now I have a question for you.

In the comments, let me know, have you ever needed to write formally in English? Maybe a business email, maybe an exam, maybe an academic essay. Let me know. Maybe you need to do it in the future at some point. Thanks so much for learning with me, and I’ll see you again next Friday for a new lesson here on my YouTube channel. I’ll see you later, bye.