Recording: Student essay, Strategies to improve writing skills

By Polly Ho

(No introduction?)  First of all, practice (what?) in everyday life is the most helpful strategy, since well goes the old saying       “Practice makes perfect.” Grab as many chances as possible to write things down in English every day. For example, keep a journal in English. Happiness, sadness, anger, excitement, frustration, disappointment, and any other feelings or moments of  a day can be very interesting topics to write about in the journal. Do not worry too much that your parents will read your journals and find out your own secrets, for seldom do they understand English. It is really an advantage to be able to write in English. .  Also, an on- line English speaking pen pal helps a lot. By means of fast and convenient emails every day, you and your pen pal can exchange different ideas and share different living experiences with each other. Most importantly, whatever you want to express must be English.

Another strategy is to read a lot of books. Textbooks introducing writing    strategies such as brainstorming, notes taking, outlines, drafting and revising are good  materials to read, for these are really important processes to go through when you are writing academic  assays or research papers. It may seems to take your whole life to finish all the steps mentioned above. However,   they can really help you organize your writing well and get good grades if you follow them step-by-step. Except for textbooks, books in    different fields are worth reading. They can be valuable resources and information when you are writing, but it doesn’t mean that you can just copy exactly the same ideas from the books . That is so-called plagiarism but not reading.

Correction is the third strategy. When you write something, there may be some grammar mistakes, poor spellings, or wrong sentence structures. Many students don’t take these problems seriously. In order to improve their writing skills, they have to first proof-read their writings, and then ask  their teacher or friend to help them pick out the mistakes. Then, they have to figure out the reason why they make such mistakes and try not to make the same mistake next time.

After constant practice, a lot of reading, and correcting mistakes, you can be a successful writer. (The conclusion is too short.)