For many, writing is a challenge. Even if you are a native or a non-native writer, it may always represent an activity that defies you. Nonetheless, everyone needs to write on a daily basis. It could be the grocery list or an article for a well-known magazine.
According to the dictionary, writing is the process of using symbols to communicate ideas or thoughts. For others, it is the art of expressing oneself with the use of words. It can manifest so many things that it would be hard to enumerate. To become a good writer is not an easy task; however, we should always take the risk. It is worth the challenge.
In academic writing, there are several types of writing, such as essays, reports, compositions, and research papers. In all cases, it is recommendable to begin with a brainstorm to come up with ideas, which later will definitely help the writer make decisions and plan better. Try to keep the organization of your writing simple. More specifically, use a certain type of organization; such as, process, classification, persuasion, or comparison and contrast. Consequently, to optimize your approach in writing, it is essential to have in mind the purpose of the writing, the goals, and the target audience. Age, gender and education are common classifications for this last one. Once you have completed this stage, you are ready to start writing.
An essay normally has five paragraphs (an introductory paragraph, two or three body paragraphs and a concluding paragraph). In the introduction, it is fundamental to include the thesis statement, which is the most important sentence in the essay because it contains the main idea of the entire essay. In the body of the essay, the paragraphs ordinarily comprise five sentences, which are a topic sentence, three supporting sentences and a concluding sentence.
When writing, there are several other features to consider; for instance, grammar, vocabulary, capitalization, spelling, and punctuation. This last one depends on the grammatical structure of the sentence; therefore, it is essential to have a very good domain of the syntactic elements. However, there are writers who rather punctuate by ear, which is definitely not a wise decision. The most common punctuation marks used in English are period, comma, semicolon, question mark and exclamation mark.
Connectors are also of crucial importance in writing. In order to connect ideas appropriately, join sentences and improve the relationship of ideas in a text, connectors are necessary. There are several types of connectors: coordinate and subordinate conjunctions and transitions. In all cases, punctuation plays an important role in the use of commas and semicolons.
Writing is a skill that most likely improves each time, so do not hesitate any longer and begin the journey. Once you start, you will enjoy the adventure and soon it will become a habit. Have in mind that it is required in many kinds of writing; such as cover letters, business letters, admission essays, postgraduate studies, etc. Writing can be a clue to success.