5 Simple Tools to Make You a Better Writer (Even if English is your second language)

Writing is one of the most powerful skills that you can develop in your life.

If you follow best practice, you’ll write the way you speak.

Writing is a long-standing form of communication that in many ways is still evolving.

Yet it is still an integral tool for human communication.

The challenge you’re likely having is getting through all the rules that go into writing.

Even if you start poring over books like "The Elements of Style" or "On Writing Well" - if writing isn’t your profession those rules aren’t going to stick.

In truth, if you're anything like me, those rules went away not long after the lunch bell rang and you ran out of your English class.

But times have changed and we live in a time where you don’t have to use white-out for your mistakes on a typewriter (bear with me if you’re too young to remember that).

Here are 5 tools that will help make your writing more clear, more powerful, and with fewer errors and a bit more grammatical flair - to the delight of your readers of course.

Grammarly

1. Grammarly is a lifesaver for any writer. It embeds itself into all parts of your online writing life.
2. There’s an extension for your browser that corrects your writing in just about every place that you write on the internet (email, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.)
3. For more larger pieces of writing, you can paste your text into the Grammarly web browser or the app for Mac/Windows and Microsoft Office.
4. This gives you a much more detailed review of your writing.
5. You'll get suggestions for fixes to your grammar, spelling and other choices for overused words.

The upgraded plan even offers up plagiarism checks to ensure that your text is original. Something that's priceless on the internet.

And since you spend most of your time on your phone anyway. There's also a mobile app that replaces your keyboard and corrects your writing on the go.

Goodbye typos and bad autocorrect - aka the bane of writing emails on mobile.

Hemingway App or Orwell App

These apps are more focused on the flow of your writing. Ensuring that it's bold, clear and not too complicated. You'll want to use Grammarly to catch the small errors that you make like spelling and a missing comma. 

The human brain wants simplicity. People want something that's easy to read. This allows them to process faster and it makes for a more natural and relaxed reading experience.

Hemingway and Orwell have a different approach. Both give you readability grade levels. Readability levels determine how understandable your writing is and the lowest education needed to understand your writing.

If your writing is above an 8th-grade level, it may be too complicated for even well-educated readers to process.

To give you some context, Ernest Hemingway wrote at a 5th Grade level, even though he was writing for adults.

Note: I’m editing this article and simplifying in Orwell and then fixing any grammar or spelling is being caught by Grammarly.

Headline Analyzer

According to Copyblogger, on average 8 out of 10 people will read your headline. But only 2 out of 10 will read the rest of your text. 

That’s how critical the headline of your article or the subject line of your email is in today’s digital world.

Legendary copywriter Joe Sugarman explains the importance of the headline in advertising.

“The most important element of your ad: The Headline.

It’s purpose: to get you to read the first sentence of your ad.

The second most important element of your ad: the first sentence.

It’s purpose: to get you to read the second sentence.

And so on and so on until your prospect is sold.”

— JOSEPH SUGARMAN

The headline is what grabs the reader and pulls them further into your content.

It's the bait to catch whatever type of fish you're trying to catch (assuming that fish read articles of course)

You can use CoSchedule’s headline analyzer to test your headlines.

You plug in the headline, and it gives you a score that checks the structure, grammar, and readability of your headline.

Nothing is perfect, but this gives you a great idea if your headline is catchy and engaging enough for people to want to read more.

Tip 1: Aim for a score above 70.

Tip 2: Try to keep the number of characters in your headline at 62 or below.

Power Thesaurus

The English language alone has over 170,000 words. Picking and choosing the right words in the right places is challenging.

That’s where a Thesaurus comes in.

It provides you with similar words with roughly the same meaning. This helps you add a bit of variation to your writing.

You can use something like Thesaurus.com, but my favourite is Power Thesaurus. I find it to be a bit easier to use and gives you a long list of words to choose from.

The Elements of Style

Here’s a non-digital solution. It’s a small read but an excellent primer for any writer.

It covers the basics such as:

• When to use apostrophes (‘s)
• Using the active voice
• Editing for needless words

Just to name a few...

Language and writing are evolving with the way that we communicate today via digital channels.

Emojis and internet slang are normal parts of writing nowadays. Due to the speed and nature of communicating on mobile devices, we're becoming more used to writing with these characters.

They allow us to add more emotion to our writing in ways that just weren't possible before.

And that’s ok. Language evolves over time.

It’s not that it’s getting worse, it’s just different.

Nevertheless, pick up a copy of The Elements of Style. It'll lead you in the right direction.

Conclusion

In the end, you have to find your path. Writing wasn’t meant to be set in stone. All of these tools should only be a guide for you.

The best thing is to find your own voice with your writing. At least these tools can help you get there.

Do you have any tools that you can recommend?