Advice for Students: 10 Steps Toward Better Writing

I am subscribed to the RSS Feed from www.lifehack.org and sometimes you can get very good articles from there.
This time it is an article about better writing. I will give you the link to the original article in the end of this post. We all know, that writing is a skill which you have to train every day. But if you have it, it can help in your life in different situations. If you can write good, you can explain what you want to other people.

In the article you will find 10 advises:
1. Pace yourself.
2. Plan, then write.
3. Start in the middle.
4. Write crappy first drafts.
5. Don't Plagiarize.
6. Use directions wisely.
7. Avoid wikipedia.
8. Focus on communicating your purpose.
9. Proofread.
10. Conclude something.

After reading this article I have to conclude something. I can say, that I have problems with all these advises. I can not plan my writing, but I will try next time. I try to not using wikipedia. I will Proofread this post before pressing publish button. All I know – I have to write something everyday, read it, rewrite it, understand what was wrong and next day write something else.
I am sure, that everything will be great and it will take some time of my life, but I will be able to write interesting texts some time later.

Have a good time there!

How to write more Effectively

Today I have listened to a podcast from Manager Tools site - Write more effectively. I want to recomend it to you.

If you don't know this site and this podcast I recommend you to visit it. Those guys are producing a really great content. They give great advises on different aspects of Managing.

In this episode they have been speaking about Army Writing.
Some rules I remember from this podcast:
1. Put your main idea first
2. Eliminate commas
3. Use Active voice
4. Read your writing out loud
5. Use writing clarity index

Listen to both parts of this story on the site to get full information on the topic.

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What is a good sory?

Hi again!
Today I want to ask you a question.
What is a good story? Is it an interesting story? Is it a story which give birth to questions and discussions?

I think that a good story must be written correctly and it must be interesting, but this doen't mater if the author doesnt know why he is writing. He must know who will read this article, story, book or a blog post.

If you don't your readers, you can not speak with them. In my opinion writing is like a dialog. You just don't get the response immediately.

For example this post. I write it for myself first of all. But I know, that other people can have similar problems and interests as I do. And in this case this text will be interesting for them. I will write it today, then in couple days or weeks I will read it myself. I will be able to answer this question again: what is a good story? And probably the next time the answer will be different. It is normal. People change all the time.

what is a good story?
Here is one, writen by Orwell, that I think is god.
Politics and the English Language


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§2 Plan of study

Hi there.
Now I want to make a plan for this blog. This plan is needed to aim to something.

I want to get a task, think how can I get it. Make a plan. Realize milestones. and start going to my goal.

First of all I have to describe my goal. The goal is to learn how to write interesting things in no matter topic. Now I have a problem with this and I want to change this situation. I want to know more about writing, I want to improve my vocabulary. I want to write faster. I want to use interesting things in my writing.

Now I want to start moving in this direction. The only possible way of improving a skill is experience, thus I have to write more. This is really easy. I will open my google calendar now and make a task in it. Write a post to the blog. Furthermore, I have some more blogs: a personal blog, a blog in russian language, where I will also make posts.

I will read different materials about writing, analysing it and post results to this blog.

I am subscribed to some podcasts, which I listen to and I will post some interesting ideas from them.

My plan is to write here at least 2 times a week on Tuesday and Thursday.
I hope that I will not be so lazy and I will be able to spend 20 minutes each week on this interesting work.

First post

Hi, my name is Oleg and I will be posting here my thuoughts, ideas, experience about learning to write. I will give you all interesting links, which I will find about writing.
I started this blog, because I want to improve my skills in writing and the best way to do it - is start to write more and get more information about it.
I could do it myself without a blog, but as I know, when you try to explain things to others, when you start to discuss things with other people - you get more results in this. If someone who will read this blog will learn somethind, it will mean, that I have learned much more.

I hope to get help from you with your coments, with your feedback.
From my side I want to give you all my best. I will find out all needed to learn writing. I will try to post something interesting and sometime funny.

Maybe in half a year I will be able to write small funny stories. And that could be interesting to all of you to read it.