How to improve your writing skills?

How to improve your writing skills ? One difficult part of the GMAT is the Analytical Writing Assessment or AWA and this difficulty is the same in many other English tests (TOEFL, TOEIC speaking and writing, IELTS, ACE, FCE, KET...). First you need to start your training being positive: http://bienpreparerlegmat.wordpress.com/2014/09/28/succeeding-is-also-a-matter-of-mindset/ Once your mind is set on a positive vibration, it’s important to have an overview of your preparation: http://bienpreparerlegmat.wordpress.com/2014/09/29/tips-to-start-your-gmatpreparation/ This includes developing your comprehension skills: http://bienpreparerlegmat.wordpress.com/2014/10/01/how-to-enrich-your-vocabulary/ and it can also be done by enriching your vocabulary: http://bienpreparerlegmat.wordpress.com/2014/10/03/how-to-enrich-your-vocabulary-2/ Once your speaking skills are improved: http://bienpreparerlegmat.wordpress.com/2014/10/18/how-to-develop-your-speaking-skills/ It’ll be easier to work on your writing skills. First you need to make sure you know the format of the test: How many questions are there to write, how long do you have to do it and how many words do you need to write? For the GMAT, there is one question and 30 minutes to write 300 words. Are there two different questions with a different timing for each? It is the case for the TOEFL with the integrated writing task 1 with 20minutes to write 150225 words and independent writing with 30minutes to write 300 words. It is also the case for the IELTS with writing task 1 graph description with 20minutes to write 150 words and writing task 2 opinion essay with 40minutes to write 250words. Then, it is capital you know the expectations, requirements and grading scale of the writing task. How are you going to be assessed? What are the criteria which will be considered to grade you? For the GMAT graded out of 6 they consider: - The quality of the ideas and arguments The ability to express, organize and develop those ideas The consistency of the explanations and examples The ability to write in standard written English. Here is what you can find on the GMAC website in order to describe the AWA scoring guide: “A Score of 6 Is Outstanding—A cogent, well-articulated critique of the argument, demonstrating mastery of the elements of effective writing, and displaying the following characteristics:     Clearly identifies and insightfully analyzes important features of the argument Develops ideas cogently, organizes them logically, and connects them smoothly with clear transitions Effectively supports the main points of the critique Demonstrates superior control of language, including diction and syntactic variety and the conventions of standard written English. There may be minor flaws. A Score of 5 Is Strong—A well-developed critique of the argument, demonstrating good control of the elements of effective writing, and displaying the following characteristics:      Clearly identifies important features of the argument and analyzes them in a generally thoughtful way Develops ideas clearly, organizes them logically, and connects them with appropriate transitions Sensibly supports the main points of the critique Demonstrates clear control of language, including diction and syntactic variety Demonstrates facility with the conventions of standard written English, but may have minor flaws A Score of 4 Is Adequate—A competent critique of the argument, demonstrating adequate control of the elements of effective writing, and displaying the following characteristics:      Identifies and capably analyzes important features of the argument Develops and organizes ideas satisfactorily, but may not always connect them with transitions Supports the main points of the critique Demonstrates adequate control of language, including diction and syntactic variety, but may lack syntactic variety Displays control of the conventions of standard written English, but may have some flaws A Score of 3 Is Limited—A competent but clearly flawed critique of the argument, demonstrating some control of the elements of effective writing, and displaying the following characteristics:      Does not identify or analyze most of the important features of the argument, although some analysis is present Is limited in the logical development and organization of ideas Offers support of little relevance and value for points of the critique Uses language imprecisely and/or lacks sentence variety Contains occasional major errors or frequent minor errors in grammar, usage, and mechanics A Score of 2 Is Seriously Flawed—A paper demonstrating serious weakness in analytical writing skills, and displaying the following characteristics:      Fails to show an understanding of and does not identify or analyze the main features of the argument Does not develop ideas or is disorganized Provides few, if any, relevant or reasonable supports Has serious, frequent problems in the use of language and sentence structure Contains numerous errors in grammar, usage, or mechanics that interfere with meaning A Score of 1 Is Fundamentally Deficient—A paper demonstrating fundamental deficiencies in analytical writing skills, and displaying the following characteristics:    Provides little evidence of the ability to understand and analyze the argument or to develop an organized response to it Has severe and persistent errors in language and sentence structure Contains a pervasive pattern of errors in grammar, usage, and mechanics thus resulting in incoherence A Score of 0 Is Unscorable—A paper that is totally illegible or obviously not written on the assigned topic.” http://www.gmac.com/gmat/understand-gmat-exam-scores/how-to-use-the-analytical-writingassessment-score.aspx For the TOEFL graded out of 6 they consider: - Task achievement and writing skills the organization and development of the ideas the exemplification of the ideas a relevant language use grammar variety and vocabulary accuracy. Here is what ETS specifies about the writing score: “Score of Six. An essay at this level: shows effective writing skills is well organized and well developed uses details clearly and properly to support a thesis or illustrate ideas displays consistent ability in the use of language demonstrates variety in sentence structure and proper word choice Score of Five. An essay at this level: may address some parts of the task more effectively than others is generally well organized and developed uses details to support a thesis or illustrate an idea displays ability in the use of the language shows some variety in sentence structure and range of vocabulary Score of Four. An essay at this level: addresses the writing topic adequately but does not meet all of the goals of the task is adequately organized and developed uses some details to support a thesis or illustrate an idea shows adequate but possibly inconsistent ability with sentence structure may contain some usage errors that make the meaning unclear Score of Three. An essay at this level may reveal one or more of the following weaknesses: inadequate organization or development poor choice of details or does not provide enough details to support or illustrate generalizations a noticeably improper choice of words or word forms numerous errors in sentence structure and/or usage Score of Two. An essay at this level is seriously flawed by one or more of the following weaknesses: serious disorganization or underdevelopment little or no detail, or irrelevant specifics serious and frequent errors in sentence structure or usage serious problems with focus Score of One An essay at this level: may be incoherent may be undeveloped may contain severe and persistent writing errors Score of 0. An essay will be rated 0 if it: contains no response merely copies the topic is off-topic, written in a foreign language or consists only of keystroke characters” https://www.ets.org/toefl/pbt/scores/writing_score_guide/ As for the IELTS writing tasks which are grade out of 9, they consider: - how well the task is achieved. Paragraphing and cohesion. The wide range of vocabulary and excellent control of lexical resources. The range of grammar structures, their flexibility, variety and accuracy. Very precise band descriptors are provided for task 1: http://www.ielts.org/PDF/Writing%20Band%20descriptors%20Task%201.pdf and task 2: http://www.ielts.org/pdf/Writing%20Band%20descriptors%20Task%202.pdf Now that you’re familiar with the format and the grading of your writing task, you’re ready to start working on the writing skills. First read the essay topic and make sure you understand what it means. If ever you don’t understand all the words, make hypothesis on what it could mean considering: - - The immediate context (the words before and after) The further context (the sentences before and after) The type of word it is: a noun would be a concept or an object. A verb would be a state or an action. An adjective would give precisions on a noun and an adverb would qualify a verb The way the word is built. What is its stem or root? Do you know what it means? Is there a prefixe and/or a suffixe? Prefixes and suffixes have a meaning which changes the one of the stem. For instance in unfortunately, the root is fortunate which means happy. The prefixe un- indicates it is a contrary and the suffixe –ly it is an adverb. We now know that unfortunately is an adverb which means the opposite of happy and can fully understand the essay topic. Once you can define all the words of the topic, you can start thinking about the thesis statement you’re going to formulate and the ideas it may lead to. A thesis statement is a way to target the extent of your thinking in order to make sure you neither go too far or limit the subject to a restricted area. It is usually in the form of another question or of a sentence which states the scope of your questioning in order to come to an answer. Then you usually consider the two or three main ideas which can answer your thesis statement. They will build the main parts of your essay. You then need to organize the ideas or sub-ideas which fit in each of your main parts. Some students prefer first listing the ideas they have and then organize them into a clear outline. It is really up to you provided both stages are done. The last part of the thinking has to do with finding examples to illustrate each of your ideas and sub-idea. Before starting to write your final text, you need to select the vocabulary and grammar you are going to use in order to meet the requirements of your writing task. Indeed, you need to make sure you are going to use an advanced targeted specific vocabulary, with diverse synonyms, phrasal verbs and idioms as well as varied complex grammar structures and different clear linking words. To start your introduction, bear in mind that you want to catch the interest of your reader, You want him/her to feel the need to read all your essay. To do that, your very first sentence should be captivating. It could be an interesting quote, an original fact or an unusual experience. Proofread it as you would not want the examiner to have a bad impression of you right from the outset. The subject should then be introduced and defined in your own words. The thesis statement should follow and the outline should finish your structured introduction. Don’t forget to use the target vocabulary and grammar and to edit your writing as you go if ever you already know that you won’t have the time to do so before the end of the allotted time. While writing the body of your essay, don’t forget to use a variety of sign posting words to make the logic stand out and make sure the words and structures you use highlight both your ideas and examples. The presentation of your essay should be neat with jumped lines before and after the development and indented paragraphs to start each new idea of each part. The conclusion answers the thesis statement. The idea is not to repeat all you’ve just written in the same way but to rephrase your final points to display the range of vocabulary and grammar you are able to use. You may open the topic onto a larger or new one but you don’t have to. Openings are usually in the form of questions which can derive from facts or news briefs. The next stage is proofreading. It becomes extremely important as it will enable you to correct most of your current mistakes. Depending on the amount of time you have, you should consider successive revisions. You should obviously start by the most common mistakes you make like the ones with the tenses for instance (present perfect/simple past, simple present/present continuous, past simple/past continuous, conditionals...). Then continue with less important mistakes such as the use of articles and quantifiers for example. Finish with the punctuation or even less regular mistakes such as spelling mistakes. The most important thing for the editing of your writing is to consider YOUR OWN MISTAKES and so to start by THE ONES YOU MAKE VERY OFTEN in order to finish by THE ONES YOU BARELY MAKE. Now that your essay is finished and proofread you can be very proud of yourself and move on to something else. Hoping my tips will have been useful and that they’ll help you to improve your writing skills.