Tuesday, June 24, 2014

When Writing Is Boring

Don’t get me wrong – I love my job. But sometimes academic writing is extremely dull. The thing is, there are so many common cliches to use and then every essay type has its own predefined structure. That’s why sometimes my work reminds me of making identical toys of different color at a factory. When the order is big, I often make a general draft and then just fill it with various information.
Well, I did discover some tips of how to make a process of essay writing interesting even after multiple experiences of writing same old paper types.

My Tip #1. Try It Differently

The first tip is experimenting with a writing style. Imagine that you are another person - use particular phrases and keep a special tone of writing, which is unusual for you. If you are used to creating complex descriptions, try to avoid such constructions. You can also play with the tone - make the whole paper sound less formal. Or less informal, depending on what is more usual for you. The necessity of significant change in style will make your work more difficult – and yet, more exciting.
For example:
“Betty Blue was a remarkable, intelligent child, whose thoughtfulness amazed the adults and impressed her friends.”
VS
“Betty Blue never suffered from the lack of brains.”

My Tip #2.  Try It Inside Out

The second tip lies within the possibility to choose which point of view you might defend in your essay. If you have this choice, always support the statement that you would normally reject. For example, when writing an essay on civil disobedience, the idea of which you sincerely support, take the other side. Describe peaceful resistance as something incredibly ineffective. Tell your readers that Mahatma Gandhi simply got lucky and that it usually takes some weapons to get through thick skull of insolent people from government. Choosing the point, different to your own, will lead to the necessity of making an additional research, analyzing more data and therefore – to gaining new knowledge.

My Tip #3. Say No to the Ordinary

The third tip is to choose interesting and challenging orders in the first place. If you got exceptionally good at writing reflective essays, for example, perhaps you should try and get yourself an order for a thesis paper. That will do a good job for your writing skills. Shift types, topics and sizes of paper. Do not get stuck in the same place, move on. After all – the more skills you acquire, the higher salary you get.


Hurrah! My 1st Post!

Hello, there! I’m Lily, a 34 year-old home-stay academic writer/advisor and a proud mother of 2 children, Amy and John, and a happy owner of 2 pets - a classy red and blue Macaw and a perky dachshund.

You’ve happened to visit my blog about academic writing. So far I don’t know what will come out of it, but I do hope that the blog will help me and other writers get better. I plan to register all the insights and tips I’ve found useful in the course of my career. Luckily, I do have some stash of tips.

In fact, I’ve been in the writing business for the last 15 years. My career as a journalist started when I was 20. I was pretty much satisfied with all this running and writing and interviewing people – and then, two years later, Amy happened. My husband convinced me to leave work – and I did, but, well, not completely. I began taking part in various writing projects online – journalist projects, fiction and non-fiction projects. Then, when I accidentally got myself into an academic writing project, I suddenly realized I’m into it. It was 5 years after I started to work as a copywriter. That was also the time when I discovered custom writing services. It took me another 5 years to get to the best ones with decent payment and adequate (mostly) clients. Now I work with trusted customers (word of mouth, you know), but sometimes I return to writing agencies.

P.S. I am almost sure that sometimes I will get carried away and mix personal with professional in this blog, but, at least, you will never be bored J