February 27th, 2009
Lifehack: The Value of Writing Well
Dustin Wax has a lovely piece on Lifehack about writing. Writing deserves practice, he says. “The skills that make us better writers make us better explainers, better persuaders, and better thinkers,” he writes. In a world dominated by information, those who write well have a huge advantage over those who don’t. Wax lists four steps to becoming a better writer:
- Read. By reading broadly, you train your mind to recognize good writing.
- Write. Practice as much as you can, in contexts as informal as Twitter, or as controlled as a business report.
- Read again. Wax thinks most poor writers fail because they don’t take the time to re-read their own writing and see how it works, or doesn’t work.
- Repeat. Persistence and practice pay off.
Tags: lifehack, Writing Skills