Writing skills key to academic and competitive success

Good writing skills are essential for success in college and university exams. For clearing competitions exams having a descriptive component, mastering writing skills is quintessential. Good writing skills mean an ability to express the concepts with clarity and precision within the word limit. Good writing skills require some professional techniques to be taught by proficient teachers.

The technique of acquiring excellence in writing skill should have a three-pronged approach:

I. Exceptional writing is never an accident. It is the result of a deliberate, multi-stage writing process. This begins with reading critically and assessing sources. Before writing a single word, a writer must critically analyse the question title, scan and decode the key words in it, brainstorm core arguments, and build a detailed outline. Scoring requires efficient note-making, text synthesis, and the ability to summarise or paraphrase existing information avoiding repetition. The process culminates in rewriting and proofreading, stages where rough thoughts are polished into clear, readable prose.

2. Good writing depends heavily on a writer’s capacity to build balanced arguments and discussions. This requires mastering the language of cause and effect, presenting clear definitions, providing verifiable evidence and introducing counter arguments to show depth of thought. Furthermore, successful writing depends on cohesion. Using precise reference words and varying sentence lengths prevents monotony and guides the examiner smoothly from an impactful introduction to a decisive conclusion.

3. Appropriate vocabulary and style are a must. Impactful writing avoids subjective biases and emotional language. Instead a tone of objective caution should always be articulate. This involves utilising specific academic nouns, gradually learning exact adjectives, verbs of reference, and precise adverbs while stripping away redundant words.

(The writer, Aalia Khan, is an assistant professor of English in BRA Bihar University)