When it comes to writing, some are born with a natural skill and others have to work on it. But one thing is sure; everybody at some point in their life will require these skills. It is especially true for those who are in the academic world.
Within the world of academia, to write is akin to speaking. It’s the systematic way of expressing your ideas and communicating to your professors whether or not you understood a particular concept. One of the fundamental practices of this scenario is book reports.
Book reports give professors and teachers the opportunity to see whether or not a student honestly read a paper or a book, and whether or not they understood it.
Book report writing has a particular structure which we won’t focus on today, but instead, we’ll focus on how to improve your writing as a whole, allowing you to craft more compelling sentences that captivate the mind of the reader.
1 Reading is the first step
To improve your writing skills, you need to expand your vocabulary. To extend your vocabulary, you need to read. Apart from increasing your vocabulary, you also start finding new ways to use words to give it the deeper meaning.
The first thing you’ll need to do is identify the “style of writing” you like the most. Do you like a particular author or niche? Find prominent works within your niche and start reading a lot. The more information you cram into your brain, the more effortless it will be for you to construct complex sentences that lead your readers forward one idea at a time.
I strongly recommend reading at least two books a month and ideally 4. It will provide you with the quickest path to improvement within your writing. Additionally, learn things that are alien to your preferred voice and draw inspiration from all sources.
Reading is a fundamental skill you need to implement to improve not only your thinking but your speaking and writing as well.
2 Experiment with styles
We all have preferences, but it’s okay to break out of the mold. The more you expose yourself to different writing styles, the easier it will be for you to develop your unique voice. I have met many authors in my day that typecast themselves into one narrative style. Eventually, their works become “repetitive” in form, and people become bored of it.
Thus, when you experiment with different styles and force yourself to write differently, you enhance the reader experience by providing uniqueness to your style. We all borrow from other authors, compress it into a singular voice and call it our own. Every prominent writer did this, and there would be no difference for you.
3 Practice everyday
If you’re serious about writing within your career, you’ll want to hone your book report writing skills. The best way to achieve this is by actually writing. It could either be a personal journal or merely a workbook where you push yourself to write in new styles, formats and so forth.
Writing takes time to improve. The more you do it, the easier it becomes, and the faster you can identify redundancies within your lingo. Don’t worry; everybody gets redundant. The point is, most people write too little to detect their excesses and in turn fail to improve their writing skills.
Do yourself a favor and read it after a month has gone by it. You’ll immediately begin to notice how you improve over time. It is especially true if you’ve gone through a year of practicing writing.
I challenge you to write for a year and then to re-read what you wrote a year past. You’ll not only notice more substance within your writing, but you’ll also see many other things that will indicate your progression to being a better writer.
4 Read your work out loud
The reason why they call writing a “voice” is that when someone reads your text, there is a little voice in their heads reading it to them.
Thus, by reading your work out loud, you can tune into ‘how that voice’ would sound to a new reader. It will provide you with insight on the way you use your words, whether an idea sounds complete or not and how the flow of the phrase occurs when heard aloud.
5 Let your work sit for a few days
Finally, a way you can improve your book report writing skills is to let your work simmer for a day or two before you pick it up to read it. It allows your brain to remove the creator’s bias from work and provides you with a clear perspective on the content.
It’s the best to let your work sit for a day or two before starting your editing process.
By increasing your overall writing skills, you’ll be expanding every aspect of your writing activities in general. I hope this mini tutorial found you well and wish you all the best in your writing endeavors.
