Writing effectively gets your point across to the reader.
It is important to deliver the right message in your writing to have the desired impact on the intended reader. Effective writing is crucial to expressing your idea, whether through a story, a letter or a thesis. There are no hard and fast rules written in stone for effective writing, but to achieve the desired result, you need to follow a few simple guidelines.
Unity
The first key to effective writing is to have a clear point, which you have to stick to throughout the piece. The entire writing should revolve around a central idea, found in a topic or a statement. You must follow the golden rule of putting the reader first. If you try to use too many words and remotely related theories in your writing, the reader may be baffled as to what you are really trying to say. The main point in the paragraph is the topic sentence, which should contain the controlling idea behind the whole writing. To evaluate the unity of the writing, you must ask if all the sentences are relevant. It is best if you limit the irrelevant bits. In addition, the topic sentence needs to be one idea and not a collection of a number of ideas.
Support
To evaluate the consistency of your writing, it is essential to have solid data points throughout the piece. If there is one large paragraph of wordy literature without useful information to go with it, the relevance to the topic is lost. You need to be specific and have adequate details that are related to the topic. Include exact numbers instead of words like "around" or "approximately." Use of descriptive nouns is quite effective in catching the reader's attention and, more importantly, holding it.
Coherence
Coherence is often the most neglected aspect of writing. Oftentimes, the pieces are jumpy, moving from one part of the topic to another without any continuity. To maintain the transition, you need to organize everything first. After that, you can assemble the information by choosing what to keep and what to omit and grouping the information logically.
Sometimes, the relevance of the topic is lost because of metaphors or similes. In fact, using these figures of speech that appear regularly in print media makes the writing clichéd. It is also advised to use the short word instead of using a longer equivalent because if handled improperly, the writing doesn't read well. The same applies for a foreign phrase, a scientific word or specific jargon. Use them only if an English equivalent is not available; however, if a word for a phrase exists that you want to use, you should definitely use the word.
Grammar Skills
Grammar is definitely what sets good writing apart from mediocre writing. All the other aspects of your writing can fail to make a positive mark on the reader if the grammar is sketchy. Apart from avoiding general errors, there are some guidelines that should always be followed. Always use active voice instead of passive. Instead of wordy prepositional phrases like "In the event that," use the one word equivalent "if." Using two negatives to make a positive does not read well for many readers -- it is best avoided. Place modifiers as close as possible to the words they modify to avoid confusion; similarly, if a sentence starts with an action, try to place the actor immediately after.
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