Tag Archives: English Writing

5 Free Tools to Help Writers Improve Their Writing Skills

Writing content is the art of expressing emotions, ideas, and imagination in the form of words. However, this is not the complete definition. The technical aspects, such as grammatical accuracy, precise word choice, readable sentence composition, etc., are also a part of this skill.

Such a skill can be honed over time with enough practice. However, in this modern age, the process of learning a skill can be sped up. Countless assistive technologies are there to help you in this regard. One such technological invention is online writing tools. Let’s learn a little more about them.

Introduction To Online Writing Tools

Online tools are tools that are accessible on a browser and don’t require downloading anything. This makes these tools accessible to everyone. But what are Writing Tools? These tools are just like all the other online utilities, but their function is related to assisting writers.

The function of these tools can range from pointing out errors in a passage to content idea generation. Such a variety of functions make these tools extremely useful.

How can Online Writing Tools Improve Writing Skills?

If these tools are used in a certain manner, they can be used as learning sources. For example, if you just use a writing tool to automate a process for you and don’t pay any attention to it, then you won’t learn anything.

However, if you observe this automation process closely, you might learn a thing or two about writing. So, if you utilize these tools at a maximum, you will be able to improve your writing skills in a relatively shorter period.

Best Free Tools to Improve Writing Skills

We have picked out a few costless online tools from which you can take assistance as a writer. In the following list, we will explain these tools and also discuss how they can be used.

1.      Grammar Check

Grammar Check is an online tool that identifies grammatical flaws in a written sample. These flaws may include:

  • Incorrect use of punctuation
  • Tense errors
  • Spelling mistakes
  • Capitalization issues

All of these mistakes are uncovered with the help of this tool. And these mistakes can not only be detected but also fixed with the help of this tool. This is because Grammar Check also shows a few possible replacements. These replacements might make your sentence grammatically accurate.

Here is an example of how this tool shows results:

As you can see in the image, by clicking on the suggestion, the tool will replace the word with it.

Use Case

Now let’s discuss how this tool can be used to enhance your writing skills. Let’s suppose you have written a short article about a particular topic. Once you finish writing, you notice that there might be some incorrect word usage in the article.

Now, you insert your article in the Grammar Check tool. Once the tool performs its function, you come to know that there were quite a few grammar errors in your work. Now what you should do is,

  • Study those mistakes
  • Note them down
  • Avoid them in the future

In this way, you can learn from the mistakes you made and gradually decrease the number of errors in your upcoming writing projects.

2.      Hemingway

Hemingway Editor is an online text complexity analyzer. This tool scans a piece of text and then displays a report explaining the readability score of that text. It explains the readability score of text in the form of grades. These grades explain how qualified a reader should be in order to understand that text.

For example, if the readability score of a passage is Grade 7, then it can be understood by anyone that has the reading capability of a middle school student. Similarly, higher readability scores like 12 and onwards hint that reading the inserted text requires the reader to have high knowledge about the language.

Use Case

Just like the previous tool, this tool can also be used to improve a specific aspect of your writing. The last tool helped in improving grammar. Similarly, this tool can help you maintain the readability of your phrases.

When you create a written draft and enter it into Hemingway Editor, you can see exactly which sentences are hard to read. If you analyze these sentences carefully, you will be able to find a way to make them easier to read.

This will:

  • Improve the flow of your writing
  • Facilitate the reader in terms of understanding what’s written
  • Convey a message clearly

After repeating this process a few times, you will be able to structure readable sentences subconsciously.

3.      Thesaurus

Thesaurus is an online source to improve your expertise in English vocabulary. There are multiple methods that this tool uses to help writers enhance their writing proficiency in terms of lexicon.

For example, here are a few interesting sections of this site that contribute to writing improvement:

  • Word of the day
  • Synonym of the day
  • Synonyms for overused words

Other than these sections, there are interesting games and learning opportunities available on this platform. These are also extremely useful.

Use Case

The use case of this tool is pretty self-explanatory. All you have to do in order to utilize this tool is visit the site every day. You can simply learn new words just by visiting this site. However, in order to actually memorize these words and make them a regular part of your writing, you should follow some exercises.

If you see a new word on the Thesaurus web page, you can,

  • Write it down
  • Try to use it in random sentences.

For example, if the word of the day is Anamnesis, you can make sentences out of it like,

  1. The old man went into a state of anamnesis when his late wife was mentioned.
  2. Having a session of anamnesis is often helpful in terms of freshening your mind.

This exercise will permanently engrave the meaning of a word into your mind.

4.      Paraphraser

Paraphraser is an online tool that rephrases sentences to make them more readable or improve their quality in general.

Paraphrasing is a technique in which a phrase is revised without damaging its literal meaning. It can be done by implementing various methods. For example, you can:

  • Replace words with matching words
  • Restructure the sentence

Such techniques are used to paraphrase a sentence.

In the following image, you can see how this tool has altered the inserted text and converted it into a modified and refined version.

The changes are also highlighted, so you can decide which alterations to keep and which to remove.

Use Case

Most people don’t realize the true potential of online paraphrasing tools. They simply use it to elevate the quality of their work. However, just like a few previously discussed tools, if you actually review the changes this tool makes to your writing, you can learn a bunch of new things.

Like for example, in the previous section, an image is shown in which a sentence is rephrased using Paraphraser. In that image, you can clearly see that a number of edits have been made. If you study these modifications, you can learn new words. In this example, the words one might not have known previously are:

  • Intellect
  • Intrigue

In some cases, you can also learn the correct ways to compose a particular sentence. In this way, the number of mistakes in your writing decreases.

5.      Coschedule

Coschedule is a diversified platform with multiple tools. However, we are going to discuss its headline analyzer. The headline and subheadings of written content are equally significant as the body.

This tool helps you polish the quality of your headlines. Especially if you are writing for an audience, the headlines play a very significant role. The headline analysis report of this tool looks like this:

The variety of different stats shown in this report is extremely helpful in crafting a compelling headline.

Use Case

This tool can also be used as a study source. There is a decent number of tips shown in the Coschedule headline analysis. If you try to understand these tips, you can implement them the next time you create a headline for written content.

Consequently, the standard of your content headlines will progressively ameliorate. To elaborate a little further, let’s suppose a situation:

  • You entered your headline in the Coschedule tool to see a report. You notice that the tool recommends that you use a few uncommon words. As per suggestion, you incorporate a few high-quality words in the headline. This gives you a lesson.

In this way, the next time you create a headline, you will make sure that it has s few complex words. Similarly, any other recommendations by the tool can be utilized to make more persuasive headlines.

Final Thoughts

Writing is a commendable skill that can be learned with enough determination and dedication. This skill-acquiring period can be made more productive with the help of a few online tools, such as the ones discussed in the above post.

If you use these tools, you will be able to simultaneously improve the quality of your work and also learn new things. This is the most profitable and effective way of learning. Also, the use of all these tools is considered completely ethical, and no one can say that it is a petty shortcut to a proper learning process.

How to Write an Effective Article?

How to Write an Effective Article?

Writing an article in today’s time seems cup of coffee to the people who don’t know the essence of article. There are so many articles regulating on the internet without any context and strengthening delivery. Everyone can write an article but there are some rules to obey and follow while writing a good, full of information article. It is actually very difficult to find a good article on internet as there are so many present there.  Article inculcates a lot of information on the topic and most importantly, information should be right and full of facts based. 

This is very essential to be good at writing articles. Articles is something that enhances your vocabulary and knowledge anyway. When you have to present an essay on school or writing college admission application, your skills benefits you. Writing an article is an art and while writing you are an artist and your only job that time is to make it interesting by right information. Moreover, there are bad articles too, which are not structured properly and they do not have any point, probably they don’t make sense and ends up getting very few reviewers who criticize.  In order to write a good article, you need to forget everything that is going in your mind and think about the topic you are going to write on. First rule first, you need to be very clear in your head about the topic and put aside other thoughts. Good article works steps by steps. You have to structure your article and develop it so reader feels more intrigued by what you are saying in the article or what important message you have to give to the people. The body of article needs to be full of content and information about the topic. Ending of article should be on a light note.

These are the steps to follow for writing effective article:

Brainstorm about the topic:

You need to be very clear about the topic you use for writing a good article. Good article basis are always the well-gain information about topic. You need to know about the topic, you should be familiar about it. However, you can get information about the topic from internet, books, and professors. Internet is not always a good choice because it contains a lot of fake data and you end up putting facts on your article, which are not even true.

  • Source should be authentic:

Article source should be authentic. It is very important to know what is the source of your article is. Information gained from internet is not what you can completely rely on. Take help from books, your professors and be sure about the article. Trust worthy source is very important so first rule first, you need to be familiar about the topic by the trustworthy source.

  • Start with introduction:

Introducing your topic in the start is very substantial. You need to give general information about your topic in the introduction. “What it is” and what discussions you are going to have further in the article or what topics you are going to cover further. Introduction should be precise and interesting at the same time.

  • Use good Vocabulary:

While writing an article, you need to add good vocabulary in it. Your article would be plain and simple, if it doesn’t contain eye catchy and new words in the article. Don’t make it more complex by adding a lot of hard and difficult words so that reader give up reading, try to stay in-between. Not to plain and not too hard. Goal is to make common reader understand what your topic is all about in good vocabulary.

  • Keep the paragraphs short and sweet:

When you move to the body part, where all the information you have collected needs to be put. You need to break that cumulative information into chunks or paragraphs so reader does not get bored of reading big paragraphs. This is the key to make an article as effective as you want by keeping the paragraphs short and simple. In each paragraph, you will cover about all the information. For example, if you are writing an article on disease, you will cover its symptoms, its spread ratio and its mechanism in paragraphs.

  • Develop the art of writing:

Good article writers contain this art of writing, on which they would write two simple sentences and they would blow up the reader because it would be written so beautifully while covering all the aspects too. You need to be very well-aware about the topic, you are going to write on. 

  • Ending should be very light and specific:

While ending the article is where most people get troubled. Starting an article and writing is much easy then ending it in a good way. Therefore, you need to leave end note on the end of your article in which you cover all of the things that your readers have understood from your article.

After writing your article, you need to read your draft multiple times. Proof reading your article is very important until it is totally perfect. Check for grammatical mistakes and make the article look more interesting by adding substantial information at the end. Writing an effective article is not a hard job, anybody can do it but person needs to be fully prepared for writing it.

How to Improve Your Writing Skills?

How to Improve Your Writing Skills?

Every individual in this world wants to be smart and geeky by speaking and writing English. Some people get scared when they are asked to write a comprehensive essay or write someone a letter. People don’t put a lot of effort into their writing skills as they consider its a secondary objective. Most people want to enhance their speaking skills but speaking skills don’t do the job alone unless you are good at writing too. While stepping into the professional world or higher school level, people realize the worth of writing skills at this level. When being in the university their most of work is assignments or essay writings. In this matter of fact, people seek help from those individuals who are actually pro at writing essays in minutes and people who cannot lag behind in their educational career. Likewise, when being in professional life, most of the requirements of the job are sitting in front of the computer or laptop and deal with clients via e-mails and some jobs requirement are writings. There are so many jobs in today’s world that are solely based on writing and people are earning by sitting at home and writing for big multi- national companies. There are content creators, bloggers who actually write stuff or give reviews about products on their page and get earned by it. All you need in today’s world to earn is to be pro at writing and you can earn while sitting behind a laptop screen. When these hurdles come along, people who have never given the food of thought to writing gets pressurized and think of themselves as losers. It is the responsibility of every parent to start teaching the importance of writing skills to their children from the start so they don’t lag behind others.

Ways to Improve Writing Skills:

  • It is very important to learn the language first completely
  • Have a strong grip on vocabulary
  • Grammar should be improved
  • Reading novels and books regularly
  • Watching movies of your interest in English
  • Writing journal
  • Take online courses for improving your writing skills
  • Spend more time in the library
  • Discuss and write with your best friend, this practice improves your writing skills as well as your confidence.
  • Search your favorite author online and write about him or here
  • Always make an outline before writing
  • Clear your concepts about your writing

How to improve writing skills?

It requires a lot of motivation to convince yourself of doing something. First of all, motivate yourself and set your goal for every day to write at least 500 days a day. Choose your favorite topic from the internet or any of your interest. Start writing about it, it could be your favorite game show or television show. It does not matter if you feel that you are lacking at it, just write your heart out. Prepare your draft and show it to the person who has strong command in writing. He will tell you about your mistakes and guide you at where you possibly lack. The first draft is always not good. When you try something new, 99% chances are that you fail at it but 1% chance is there to try again. If your draft is full of grammar mistakes and simple words, there is no need to worry about it. Edit your work after getting proper guidance. Edit your work every day. When you feel that you have reached a satisfactory level of writing then try to extend your goal of everyday writing to 1000 words and many more. Start a blog and start writing there as it would create more excitement in you and you will be cautious while writing that if I am writing correctly or not. Interact with the people on your blog and by this, you would be able to write fluently. One way of improving your writing skills in reading. Reading opens and flourishes your mind. Many people read so they can be in places where no one is. Reading is an adventure which opens a lot of locked doors of your mind, which you did not even know you have. Find your favorite author and start reading his or her books. First, it will help you in gaining knowledge of different subjects and secondly, it would help you in your writing skills. Getting a good grip on the vocabulary is also very important and to get that, you need to watch English movies, read books, newspaper, blog posts anything which includes English. Your writing skills would be more beautified when your grammar is on point and your vocabulary is enriched. It is very important to do your research before writing about the topic. Research about your topic and then try to write on it. Never ever delay your writings, if you have not completed your set goal of every day, you would not be able to achieve it easily. Always be firm about your goals and one day you achieve it in one way or another. Working hard is always the key.

Conclusion:

To improve your writing skills, one should be determined about it and totally be dedicated towards it. One should try to speak first while writing so they know that their sentence structure makes sense or not. Make abstract concepts and metaphors to bring them into reality. Develop sticky writing habits. Try to make your writing more interesting by adding creative ideas. Try firstly by writing mini-stories and gradually increasing your pace. Nothing is really impossible in life. If a person wants to learn something, they do at the end of the time.