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to close out this section.

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I want to talk about some things you can do to become a better writer.

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Overall,

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good writing isn't an ability.

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You're just born with it,

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the skill you have to practice and develop over time.

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So the number one thing you can do to improve your writing is to write and write often.

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Write in a journal,

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use different styles,

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cover different topics,

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even try your hand at fiction.

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What matters is that you're always improving your ability to communicate using the written

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word.

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If you're looking for some quick,

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actionable ways to improve your writing here,

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a few tips.

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First of all,

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one of the best ways to strengthen your writing is to use the active voice as much as you

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can.

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You see in English.

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There are two main voices you can use in your writing.

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The active voice in the passive voice.

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The distinction is simple.

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Is the subject of the sentence doing the action,

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or is the subject having the action done to them?

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Here's an example.

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You could say Louise kicked the ball across the field,

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or the ball was kicked across the field by Louise,

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which one of these sounds better,

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probably the 1st 1 and that's because it uses the active voice.

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The subject of the sentence.

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Louise is doing the action.

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Louise kicked the ball in the second case,

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the subject of the sentence.

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The ball is having an action done to it.

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The ball was kicked.

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There are some cases where the passive voice makes sense,

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but most of the time you're much better off using the active voice.

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Next,

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let's talk about contractions.

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If you've ever written an academic paper,

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you've probably been told not to use contractions.

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Words like your there don't aren't isn't and so on.

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While contractions may not be appropriate for an academic setting,

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blogging tends to be more casual and conversational.

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Like I said earlier,

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you're not writing an encyclopedia.

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You want to match the style and tone of your audience,

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and usually that includes using contractions on a similar note.

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You want your content to be approachable,

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even for people who may not be experts on your topic.

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After all,

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that's usually why people come to you in the first place because you're the expert.

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So I recommend simplifying your vocabulary and avoiding excessive jargon,

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a great litmus test for one's understanding of a topic is whether they can effectively

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explain it to a child.

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Keep that in mind and always imagine you're writing for an audience that has no experience

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with your topic unless you know for sure that your audience has a certain level of

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knowledge.

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For example,

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if you write for an audience of physicians,

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one of the most important tasks you have to accomplish as a writer is keeping your reader's

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interest.

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That's especially true in today's world,

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where as soon as somebody gets bored,

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they're clicking on to something else.

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One of the best ways to keep people engaged is to make your content easy to skim short

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sentences and short paragraphs ideally broken up by subheadings and images.

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If your post is just one giant wall of text,

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nobody's gonna want to read it.

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Try to break your writing up and make it easier to digest.

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The next thing we need to discuss is one of the most common pitfalls in writing,

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and that is an overuse of modifiers like adjectives and adverbs.

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Adverbs in particular,

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are often unnecessary,

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and I don't think I could explain it any better than Stephen King in this great excerpt

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from his book on writing.

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Consider the sentence.

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He closed the door firmly.

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It's by no means a terrible sentence.

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At least it's got an active verb going for it.

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But ask yourself if firmly really has to be there.

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You can argue that it expresses a degree of difference between he closed the door and he

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slammed the door and you'll get no argument from me.

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But what about context?

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What about all the enlightening not to say emotionally moving prose,

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which came before he closed the door firmly.

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Shouldn't this tell us how he closed the door?

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And if the foregoing pros does tell us,

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isn't firmly an extra word,

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isn't it redundant?

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That's the end of the quote by Stephen King.

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I always reference that when I talk about over using adverbs,

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the idea here isn't to use zero adverbs just to use them sparingly and finally,

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editing.

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Is Justus important as writing Now you could hire an editor to look over your work,

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but I think self editing is a valuable skill that people too often neglect.

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After you write your first draft,

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walk away for a bit,

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do something else and then come back when your mind is fresh.

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At this point,

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you want to start cutting your content down.

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Be merciless here.

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You want your writing to be as clear and concise as possible,

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so you have to remove the fluff.

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Keep in mind that every piece of content should have one core idea or solve one main

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problem.

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Anything that doesn't contribute to that should be cut.

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And by the way,

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even if you're great itself editing,

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it still doesn't hurt to run your content by somebody else just to get a fresh perspective

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.

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So that's it.

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Those air some of the most actionable pointers I can offer you if you want to improve your

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writing and create better content.

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Like I said,

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it does take time and effort to develop the skill of good writing.

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But those are all things you can start doing to become a more effective writer today,

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so I hope you put them into action