Improve Your Writing -- Get a Writing Partner

Finishing your essay, your paper, or your written report is a very satisfying feeling, isn't it?

After sometimes very long hours -- or days (or weeks, or months) -- of toiling away on it, there finally comes that relieving moment as you add your last period to your last sentence and think, "I'm done!"

What do you do next?

If you are an average or below average writer, you probably click "print" and call it a day. If you are the writer who is going to get that "A", or the writer who is going to get published, or the writer who is going to use their writing to successfully sell a product, then you know you are not done. In fact, you have only completed stage one -- the first draft. If you're smart, your next step will be to find someone you trust to read what you have written and help you turn your rough draft into a final draft.

During my first year in college, I was very lucky to meet someone who would become a close friend and trusted academic sidekick: my freshman roommate. As it turned out, my randomly assigned roommate and I had a lot of similar interests. In fact, we eventually chose the same major (English) and even had the same advisor. Over the next four years we would take many classes together, study together, share books, and share ideas. When graduation came around, she graduated Summa Cum Laude ("with highest honors"), and I graduated Magna Cum Laude ("with high honors"). And, starting as freshmen, we always edited one another's papers.

"Are you ready to switch?" I would ask her from my behind my desk as we were working on papers together in the room.

"Sure," she would reply, and we would trade desks, reading one another's paper and inserting our feedback for each other into the other's document.

It was a great system that worked for us for four years of college. It was very rare that I handed in an assignment without her reading it first, and vice versa.

TS Eliot used to call Ezra Pound (his editor) the "better writer". Some scholars even dispute how much of Eliot's writing is actually HIS... and how much is Pound's. The same was true with my roommate and me: in every paper she wrote, I could see traces of my own style emerging; in every paper I wrote, I could easily pick out the parts she had rescued from demise.

Do you want to be a successful writer?

Of course you do! You wouldn't have read this far otherwise! My advice to you is to find a writing partner whose writing you admire, and have him or her read your work before you begin your second draft. Meanwhile (if he trusts you!), he can give you his work, and you can do the same for him. Over time, as you get to know one another's writing strengths and weaknesses, you will both develop a keen awareness of the other's shortcomings as a writer, and it will get easier and easier to help each other improve.

Here are some common mistakes beginner writers make that you can look for when you read your partner's work. Your writing partner has already read his or her paper so many times that he's become blind to these errors, but with your fresh set of eyes, you can help him avoid these pitfalls:

• Common grammatical errors (such as using "their" instead of "there" or "they're")
• Using trite, unoriginal phrases or analogies (such as "It was black as night")
• Redundancy (or restating the obvious)
• Body paragraphs that do not strongly support the thesis
• A thesis that is weak, vague, or confusing

This is by no means an extensive list of beginner's pitfalls, but it will be enough to help you and your writing partner get started. Just remember that while you might feel self-conscious showing what you write to someone else, eventually your writing will be read, anyway -- by your professor, by your boss, or by your customer. Wouldn't you rather have your mistakes pointed out to you by your writing partner than learning what mistakes you made when you back a paper that says "D" in big, red ink?