5 Tips to make you a more successful writer!

expository writing High School
By Rosa S.

Title_ How to Study Efficiently for Hours On End (With the Help of a Tomato) (4)Like many other tutors, what has been most useful for me is building myself up to writing. I use a lot of “tricks” to get around my anxiety about writing, and it often takes me several tries to get started. And with the pandemic, there are even more reasons to be distracted. Here are some tricks that have worked for me!

1. Set your environment up for success!

This can mean a lot of things. For me, it means creating an environment that is sufficiently distraction-free. Particularly, it means removing temptations. When I was in grad school, I used a variety of apps that blocked websites and tracked my time (RescueTime, Self-Control, Focus). All of them worked with a version of the Pomodoro technique, where you write for 30-minute stretches, then take a short break, then write again. While they have their drawbacks (I tend to get very invested in keeping up streaks), I found that these apps helped me organize my time. Now it was no longer a day where I could push off writing for an hour here, an hour there. Instead, my thinking went, I could always work for 30 minutes.

These apps also had the benefit of blocking my access to distracting websites, like Twitter or Facebook. While I was writing, I would also put my phone away in my bag, and turn off my messenger app on my computer.

2. Set yourself up for success!

The one thing that got me through my big writing projects, whether it was my dissertation, an article, a paper for class, or a lecture, was breaking down the project. I keep a number of “to do” lists: one for my academic work, one for my teaching, and one for my theatre work. When I started using them, I put a main goal at the very top “Finish Chapter 2”, and it would just stay there, unchecked, and glaring at me. It wouldn’t get checked off, and I would feel worse and worse about it (and subsequently, myself). Instead of keeping the really large goal at the top of the list, I would break the task down into steps, that I would work on every single day. They could be large (like write 750 words on the history of props) or small (check a citation), but they would help me get to my goal.

3. Set your argument up for success!

If you are writing an English paper, make sure you have laid the proper groundwork before you start. Say you are writing a paper about props in Zoot Suit! While you could return to the play every time you needed a quote and painstakingly flip through each chapter searching for the perfect piece of evidence, that would take a lot of time! Instead, before you even sit down to write, make sure you’ve marshaled all your arguments. For me, that means when I read something I know I’m going to write about, I annotate the text. I underline and star key phrases, but I also flag quotes (either through a bookmark, or dog-earing the page), so I can find it later. Then, before I write, I take notes on the text. I copy quotes into a separate document, write what I notice about them (“huh, it’s interesting this phrase uses repetition,” or, “what impact does this metaphor have here?”). This “pre-writing”allows me to start thinking about how to best phrase my ideas, without the pressure of committing to them.

4. Set your writing up for success!

No matter who you are, or how experienced a writer you are, starting to write is incredibly daunting. I know that my process used to involve at least a day of stopping and starting, and feeling down on my abilities. However, it doesn’t have to be that way! As other tutors have mentioned, it is a great idea to start off your writing project with some low-stakes writing. That means that my first draft is a focused free write, where I don’t think about what I’m writing, or how I’m writing it, I just try to get all my thoughts out, so I have a base from which to work. This draft is what I call my “garbage draft,” and it is usually written in casual language, with placeholders where I can’t immediately think of connections.


Another trick I use? Don’t write in Word or Google Docs. The formal nature of those programs is often quite intimidating. Instead, I start writing in my ‘Notes’ app, or an email draft. That way, I get out all of my ideas without the dreaded blinking cursor. Then, after I get a base for my paper, I revise, revise, revise. I take my ideas and expand on them, making them and my wording more complex.

5. Set your process up for success!

The most important advice I have? Give yourself enough time! If possible, make sure you have at least a day between when you finish a draft of your paper, and when it is due. When you finish a draft, or a section, or a Pomodoro, get up and go for a walk. Don’t look at Twitter, don’t watch a show on Netflix (even if it is only 24 minutes). Stop looking at a screen. Give your brain a break, so when you come back to edit—or to keep writing—it is fresh.

Cambridge Coaching was founded by doctoral candidates in English, and instruction in reading and writing is one of our particular strengths. Our tutors are published authors, as well as Ph.D candidates from the top English graduate programs in America, with most hailing from Harvard or the prestigious Iowa Writers’ Workshop--or both.

We have a long history of helping high school, college, and graduate students become more astute critical readers and writers capable of producing their own polished academic essays. Many of our students come to us looking for help with basic composition or reading comprehension, but our expert tutors have coached our clients through everything from business English to doctoral dissertations. Whether you need to learn how to tell a participle from a pronoun, or need help making sense of Shakespeare, we can design a syllabus to suit your specific goal.

Contact us!

Check out some other blog posts regarding writing below!:

Betwixt and between: difficult grammar rules explained

Five strategies to improve your writing

It’s All Greek to Me—How to Build Vocabulary from the Ground Up

Comments

topicTopics
academics study skills MCAT medical school admissions SAT expository writing college admissions English MD/PhD admissions strategy writing LSAT GMAT GRE physics chemistry math biology graduate admissions academic advice ACT interview prep law school admissions test anxiety language learning premed MBA admissions career advice personal statements homework help AP exams creative writing MD study schedules computer science test prep Common Application summer activities history mathematics philosophy organic chemistry secondary applications economics supplements research 1L PSAT admissions coaching grammar law psychology statistics & probability legal studies ESL CARS SSAT covid-19 dental admissions logic games reading comprehension engineering USMLE calculus PhD admissions Spanish mentorship parents Latin biochemistry case coaching verbal reasoning DAT English literature STEM excel medical school political science skills AMCAS French Linguistics MBA coursework Tutoring Approaches academic integrity chinese letters of recommendation Anki DO Social Advocacy admissions advice algebra artificial intelligence astrophysics business cell biology classics diversity statement gap year genetics geometry kinematics linear algebra mechanical engineering mental health presentations quantitative reasoning study abroad technical interviews time management work and activities 2L DMD IB exams ISEE MD/PhD programs Sentence Correction adjusting to college algorithms amino acids analysis essay art history athletics business skills careers cold emails data science dental school finance first generation student functions information sessions international students internships logic networking poetry resume revising science social sciences software engineering tech industry trigonometry writer's block 3L AAMC Academic Interest EMT FlexMed Fourier Series Greek Health Professional Shortage Area Italian Lagrange multipliers London MD vs PhD MMI Montessori National Health Service Corps Pythagorean Theorem Python Shakespeare Step 2 TMDSAS Taylor Series Truss Analysis Zoom acids and bases active learning architecture argumentative writing art art and design schools art portfolios bacteriology bibliographies biomedicine brain teaser campus visits cantonese capacitors capital markets central limit theorem centrifugal force chemical engineering chess chromatography class participation climate change clinical experience community service constitutional law consulting cover letters curriculum dementia demonstrated interest dimensional analysis distance learning econometrics electric engineering electricity and magnetism escape velocity evolution executive function freewriting genomics graphing harmonics health policy history of medicine history of science hybrid vehicles hydrophobic effect ideal gas law immunology induction infinite institutional actions integrated reasoning intermolecular forces intern investing investment banking lab reports linear maps mandarin chinese matrices mba medical physics meiosis microeconomics mitosis mnemonics music music theory nervous system neurology neuroscience object-oriented programming office hours operating systems