Five Steps to Gaining Good Writing Skills

by: Peter Morgan

The best way to start honing good writing skills is by learning to write good essays.

At its most basic, there are five steps to writing a good essay. These good writing techniques are skills that anyone can learn.

The first step is to choose a subject in which you have an avid interest. The point isn't so much that you can talk knowledgeably about it (because good research is part of good writing skills) but that you want to learn about it and your enthusiasm will show through. Let's assume, for instance, that you love working from home, so you decide to write an essay about telework.

The next step is to hone the good writing skills that let you narrow down the subject and come up with a specific topic statement. Telework is a very broad subject. You could talk about how to set up your own home office, how to convince your current boss to let you do your job from home, how to convert your dream into a work from home entrepreneurship, how to resolve impediments like invasive neighbours, computer security, meeting with clients and so forth.

Let's assume you've decided to talk about how you convinced your boss to let you work from home. Your topic statement might be "I saved my company $xxx last year by working from my home office."

Good writing skills involve clear but catchy topic statements that will entice the reader to read to the end of your essay. The next step is to answer the question why five or more times in the body of the essay. Tell the readers, for instance, why you wanted to work from home, why your boss finally okayed it, why it saved the company money, why you succeeded at working from home, why the nosy neighbors and your tiny tots didn't interfere and why you're more productive now.

The two most important good writing skills are the ability to begin your essay well, and to conclude it well. Your essay conclusion should summarize your key points and refer back to the topic statement. In this essay on telework, for example, you might conclude by saying, "My telework saves me the stress and expense of a lengthy commute. My employer is delighted with my increased productivity. Everyone wins with my telework."

If all else really fails then you could resort to hiring a Ghost Writer. But, before you do you should check out a few samples of their previous work and best of all get a recommendation from others.