Some Simple Ways to Make Your Writing Better

What is it that makes a written work great? Although we tend to think only of novels and longer stories as being great works, we should not discount that smaller pieces can be works of art and quality as well. Even the little things that we write on an everyday basis can be transformed into memorable and exceptional pieces of writing. However, while it may not always be easy to make this transition, it can definitely be helped along the way with a little knowledge and a little practice. One of the most misguided and difficult learn elements of writing deals with adjective and adverb use. However, if use a little practice, and follow some time-honored tips and tricks, we can greatly improve our writings and add even more joy to the past time of writing.

Perhaps the first thing that has to be done in order to master the adjective or adverb is to understand what exactly they do. When we use an adjective, we use it to add clarity or detail to a noun or a pronoun. For example, instead of writing, "The dog ran away". We might instead write, "The slim, muscular dog ran away". Accordingly, adverbs then are used to add effect to verbs, other adverbs and even adjective. Thus, if we use an adverb in our previous sentence, we can now form the sentence, "The slim, muscular dog ran quickly away". In this case, the adjective "quickly", modifies the verb ran. However, even when we come to understand what adjective and adverbs are, a far greater difficulty is learning how to incorporate them effectively into our writing.

While many simply neglect the use of adjective and adverbs, other use them far too often. There is, contrary to popular belief, joy in simplicity. Although complex sentences have their place, try reading any of your favorite novels. You should notice that even though the author does not drown the sentences in description, they are still capable of providing detail and interest to the reader. Herein lies one of the most important rules for using adjective and adverbs and placing them into sentences: they must be effective in their placement. We do not want to use an adjective or adverb simply because we can. Rather, we should take the time and actually think about what can make the sentence better.

It is also incredibly important to determine whether or not a sentence actually needs an adverb. Here's a simple exercise. Right down a simple sentence about something you did today. Such as, "Adam went to the store". Now read the sentence back; does it seem to missing something? Well, although the sentence does make it's point, a lot more detail could be provided to the reader in order to make the sentence more effective and the writing more interesting. Thus, we might want to consider adding an adjective to describe what kind of store Adam went to. So, try, "Adam went to the grocery store". Better, right? But perhaps we could add a little more detail about how Adam actually arrived at the store, to provide context and further information. So, try "Adam went to the grocery store, moving quickly to avoid the cold". We have thus added an adjective, adverb and also changed the structure of the sentence to make it more effective.

When adding adjective and adverbs we must be careful not to become caught in the trap that a sentence must remain identical to the way that we originally wrote it. If a little changing of the sentence structure can make it more readable and more effective, than change it around. A sentence is not written in concrete, we need to learn to change our words and phrases around to make them sound as good as possible.

Also, in order to really learn to use adjective and adverbs effectively, one of the things that we absolutely have to learn is how to avoid using them incorrectly. All too often, adjective and adverbs are confused in their placement, and occur in casual types of speech where are they are not needed. Using an adjective where an adverb should go and vice versa is a sure way to ruin a sentence and to make sure that the overall quality of writing has gone down. In order to avoid this, we simply need to stop and think about what we are writing and how we write it, using a simple thought, we can help ourselves to use the correct placement of adjectives and adverbs, and when we use them effectively, we can make our sentences and our writing much stronger.

Although the quest to improve our writing and the messages that we send can sometimes seem difficult, if we simply take the time to analyze what we are writing and think about what we want to say we can often find that everything becomes much easier. Often, becoming a better writer is a simply a matter practice and determination. Although it is not the only component, when we learn to use adjective and adverbs effectively, we can help to ensure that we are better writers as a whole.