Speedy ways to improve your writing
14th April, 2015
by our resident blogger, Marieke
With examination season creeping up again it’s time to start gently thinking about revision and brushing up on your exam technique and approach. Most examinations include some sort of written element and often you get marked on not just what you are writing about but how you present your ideas. Even just a little bit of work dedicated to sprucing up your vocabulary can make an enormous difference. Here are a few little things that you can do to get the ball rolling…
I am constantly promoting creating your own themed ‘word banks’
Get a blank piece of paper and make lists of: connectives, colours, alternatives to ‘said’, useful argumentative phrases, snazzy adjectives and adverbs.
Then start to include these in your own work and transform pedestrian sentences into ones full of impressive and unusual vocabulary.
Set yourself short challenges such as writing five creative similes, five sentences including personification and five with some alliteration. We all know that we should include these things in our creative writing, but unless we keep practising, it can be easy to forget.
Spruce up your punctuation; a misplaced apostrophe and incorrectly applied colon can really let you down. The internet (and specifically certain articles on the Enjoy Education blog) can provide you with reminders of how to employ all the punctuation marks.