Need advice on how to improve my writing skills

Dancingjebus3

I am in my final year of college and I am still have trouble writing up literature reviews or writing in general. I do the plenty of reading and I understand the information well but when it comes to writing it on paper it is just a disaster. I read over it and it seems fine to me in my own head but I always get stuff back saying the points are there but the writing is just really bad and I dont get my points across well. so if anyone has any advice on how I can go abouts improving my writing it would be appreciated.

pickarooney

Give us a sample?

Black Swan

pickarooney wrote: »

Give us a sample?

Yes please. A creative writing sample, not a college term paper or literature review; e.g., poems, short stories, etc.

EileenG

Yes, samples would be good.

As a quick fix, try reading what you write out loud, ideally to someone else. You can often hear things that don't work when they are audible, where you can miss them on paper.

Dancingjebus3

I dont do much work that is not in the form of a term paper or reviews so I do really have anything outside of college type stuff to show you, heres just a random piece from one of my literature reviews which I was told was written badly.
Critique away please!

The Economy and well being
The question of whether there is a strong relationship between the economy doing well and its population’s wellbeing increasing is addressed by Richard Layard. Layard tells us since world war two, GDP has steadily risen over time and yet happiness has stagnated. Justin Wolfers in an interview on Happiness economics (2009) also commented on relationship between the economy and well being, Wolfers insisted that from the research that the Gallup world poll (2007) provided, we can see as Lehman crashed, happiness has also crashed, the point that is being made here is that as Leham crashed, economic security in the economy also dropped and hence why happiness would have crashed. He also makes the claim that although happiness is particularly low at the moment it is not as low as income is, this can represent that income is not the sole factor that affects happiness because if it was it would be a one for one relationship between the two which shows us that although there is a strong relationship between the two there are also other factors that have an effect on wellbeing. . . . .


I can give more samples of work iv done if needed??

pathway33

Your sentences are too long. I've rearranged things a bit, although in a rush so mine could do with improvement too. Apologies if the text font is unusual. I copied it from word.

Richard Layard addresses the question of whether there is a strong relationship between the economy doing well and the wellbeing of the population. Layard tells us that since world war two, GDP has risen steadily and yet happiness has stagnated. Justin Wolfers in an interview on Happiness economics (2009) also commented on the relationship between the economy and well being. Wolfers, referring to research from the Gallup world poll (2007), insisted that as Lehman crashed, happiness also crashed. As Leham crashed, economic security in the economy dropped - hence happiness crashed. He also makes the claim that although happiness is particularly low at the moment, it is not as low as income. Income is not the sole factor that affects happiness because if it was there would be a one for one relationship between the two. However, although there is a strong relationship between the two there are also other factors that have an effect on wellbeing. . . . .

FarmerGreen

Practically unreadable in HTML. It turns into a bowl of spaghetti.
Maybe more like this?

Richard Layard addresses the question of whether there is a strong relationship between the economy doing well and the wellbeing of the population.
Layard tells us that since world war two, GDP has risen steadily and yet happiness has stagnated.
Justin Wolfers in an interview on Happiness economics (2009) also commented on the relationship between the economy and well being.

Wolfers, referring to research from the Gallup world poll (2007), insisted that as Lehman crashed, happiness also crashed.
As Leham crashed, economic security in the economy dropped - hence happiness crashed. He also makes the claim that although happiness is particularly low at the moment, it is not as low as income.

Income is not the sole factor that affects happiness because if it was there would be a one for one relationship between the two.
However, although there is a strong relationship between the two there are also other factors that have an effect on wellbeing. . . .

Black Swan

I would like to encourage you to write creatively, and post it on this thread. No term papers, rather try letting yourself go-with-the-flow and free write something creative? It can be informed by your life events, pure fiction, or a little of both. Sometimes writing the first sentence is a problem, so I'll toss one out for you to use if you like...

Looking upon the destruction of his bed, with the blanket and pillow on the floor, Dancingjebus3 knew he had a rough, sleepless night. But why?

<New paragraph...Now write!>

pickarooney

Blue_Lagoon wrote: »

Looking upon the destruction of his bed, with the blanket and pillow on the floor, Dancingjebus3 knew he had a rough, sleepless night. But why?

That sentence should be brought out to the haggart and shot

OP, replace the passive voice with direct statements of fact and break up your sentences more. Avoid repetition by turning phrases differently.

It might be evident from the rest of the piece but where/when/how does Layard address the question in the first sentence? What were his conclusions? Do you agree with them?

The whole thing is a bit fuzzy as measuring exact degrees of happiness is not really a scientific procedure, so it could do with concrete examples of what you're tring to say. Again, the piece is a bit short and lacking in context but from what you've posted it doesn't come across as though you're very confident in what you're trying to say.

Time Magazine

Blue_Lagoon wrote: »

No term papers, rather try letting yourself go-with-the-flow and free write something creative?

I know it's the point of the forum and all that, but focusing on creative writing mightn't be the best idea for the OP at this point. I am good at writing for academic papers, but distinctly average at creative stuff. They're slightly different skills.

OP, for writing tips, read this. Every last word. It's pitched at Ph.D. students but it applies equally to final year projects, etc. It will be brutal to anything you've ever written, and the author is a prick, but damn it makes things read well.

pickarooney

Time Magazine wrote: »

OP, for writing tips, read this. Every last word. It's pitched at Ph.D. students but it applies equally to final year projects, etc. It will be brutal to anything you've ever written, and the author is a prick, but damn it makes things read well.

Quality article; hard to argue with any of it.

hamid_awais

Before you start writing make a flow diagram of what you gona discuss. Like first of all i will discuss point A than point B and in the end Point C. Now when you will start writing you will see huge improvement