English Writing Skills
“The key to good writing relies on the knowledge of foundational English writing skills”
It is imperative that the competent writer is familiar with grammar and other English methodologies. Essentially, by understanding the mechanics of sentence structure and composition, a writer may more clearly deliver their intended message to the reader. Writing, therefore, should be delivered in both economical and succinct prose: that is, logically crafted so that the writer’s ideas are conveyed lucidly and persuasively to the reader. In this way, a systematic approach to writing may help the writer avoid a jumbled and incongruent argument. For example, an elementary way to facilitate a writer’s clear flow of ideas is by ensuring that a subject and verb is properly sequenced in a ‘complete sentence’. This will help the writer formulate proper English syntax and clear expression (which in turn enables a reader’s maximum comprehension regardless of the sentence length). What is also a hallmark of proper English sentence construction is the practice of starting each first letter of a sentence in uppercase. Additionally, to complete a sentence, the writer must signal the reader by inserting a full stop, exclamation mark, or question mark.
Another sign of competent writing is the varying of sentence length. For instance, it is advisable to interchange the length of sentences to avoid a monotonous writing piece. This writing technique helps to encourage the reader to follow a writing piece more proactively as the sentence lengths are not predicable and therefore requires close examination. Likewise, it is equally advisable that a sentence avoids verbose, long and ubiquitous use of subordinate clauses; this is because excessive complex sentences impede the reader’s overall comprehension, perhaps even causing the reader to lose interest in the ideas of the writer. Thus, to be a successful writer, the writer must employ a varied approach to constructing sentences to maximize reader engagement, comprehension and sustained interest.
A third component of foundational English writing skills is the ability to properly construct a paragraph. Indeed, the achievement of this competency may be argued as distinguishing satisfactory writing from great writing (in so far as a paragraph fosters a reader’s understanding on a discussed topic). Basically, a well developed paragraph effectively organizes a writer’s ideas and presents these ideas to the reader in an accessible format. A paragraph also provides a framework by which a writer’s distinctive style can be shaped by selectively using collocations, tone and register that differentiate genres and writing styles. In this way, the construction of a paragraph is an essential English writing skill. It requires knowledge of the English language and writing discipline as well as its masterful application.
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