8 Everyday Writing Activities for University Students to Become Writing Gurus
One of the things that strikes fear in the heart of many college students is writing an assignment. Unfortunately, this part of college is inescapable and many students struggle in this department, even the brightest of them since writing is not an easy task. But the good news is that students don’t have to view writing as an agonizing college chore, and they can easily improve their writing by practicing these eight everyday writing activities.
- Writing a Blog
One of the biggest problems that everyone faces when it comes to writing is getting into the flow of things. And anyone can combat this problem by practicing. Students can start a blog and aim to write at least one post a day – they say to get good at writing, one must write every day, even when they don’t want to write. And a blog is the perfect platform because anyone can write about anything they want. The more one writes, the easier they will find getting into the flow of writing is, especially when comes time to write a college paper.
- Get a Penpal
Writing to a pen pal is a great way to just write freely and honestly without worrying about characters, points, arguments, evidence, facts or grades. With a pen pal, students who wish to sharpen their writing skills can explore different writing styles and unleash their inner creativity. Writing to a pen pal doesn’t mean typing out an email, it means actually putting pen to paper, which has been proven to sharpen the brain – no wonder many people feel a burst of creativity when writing by hand.
- Use Writing Apps and Tools
Getting help from writing apps is a great way to improve one’s writing skills. Here is a list of helpful apps.
- Google Docs – Google Docs is an online web-based word processor app that has a good version control system, which allows the writer to see how their document has evolved over time and learn from their mistakes.
- WordCounter – WordCounter is useful for those students who want to control the length of their text and not go overboard when writing.
- Grammarly – Grammarly has a Google Chrome extension that improves grammar and spelling. The extension can even be integrated into WordPress when writing a blog or WordCounter.
- EasyBib Bibliography Creator – This is another online tool that helps with creating bibliographies, something that is a must in all academic papers.
- Read Scholarly Papers
To develop their writing skills in college, students should read other academic papers. The more challenging the paper is to read, the better. And when reading, attention must be paid to how the author constructed each sentence, the word choice they used and the way the text flows from sentence to sentence and paragraph to paragraph. All this improves writing skills because students will know what makes an effective writer, and they will also learn what mistakes to avoid.
- Use a Thesaurus and Dictionary
To become a writing guru, students need to make sure that they don’t repeat the same words over and over again. This means their vocabulary needs to be expanded, and a thesaurus is a perfect tool for adding variety to any piece of writing. A word of advice is to keep in mind that just because words are listed in a thesaurus as synonyms, it doesn’t mean they are always interchangeable. That is why also having a dictionary handy can help make sure the synonym fits the context of the text being written.
- Rewrite Previous Work
Everyone dreads looking at their previous work, but it is a great way to track improvement over time. So students should find their previous writing and try to improve upon it if they want to sharpen their writing skills and become a guru. The improvements can range from minor edits to complete rewrites – this will depend on how good or bad the piece was, to begin with. While doing this activity, students should take note of what they are improving so they can avoid it the next time they write another paper.
- Edit and Proofread Ruthlessly
After drafting a blog or letter or college paper, the next step is to edit, edit and edit some more. Editing doesn’t mean making the piece flawless, which can take a long time, it means making sure that there are no spelling and grammar mistakes and that the piece makes sense (every sentence flows from one point to the next). The first draft of almost any writing is usually riddled with errors, and constantly editing one’s work turns one into a stronger and more efficient writer over time.
- Constantly Seek Feedback
Analyzing one’s own work objectively is nearly impossible, and that is why feedback from other people is vital to becoming a writing guru. If a student is serious about becoming better at writing, they need to pick a topic, write a piece and give it to someone to read. After getting feedback, they should go back to editing and proofreading it based on that feedback.
Practice makes perfect. This might sound like a cliche, but cliches are overused phrases for a good reason: they are mostly true. So by practicing their writing skills with these everyday writing activities, students are bound to become efficient writers and won’t fear assignments anymore. But if they are still struggling to write their college papers after reading these tips, they can always hire a professional custom writing service to help them out.