Following the covid-19 pandemic outbreak and the ensuing lockdowns, a growing number of professionals started working remotely. To date, a lot of firms including government organizations and digital behemoths like Facebook, are permanently shifting to remote workforce which includes online writing. This means that online writing skills are becoming crucial for professional development. As such, knowing how to develop these skills becomes key. Despite being lucrative, finding well-paying professional online writing jobs is increasingly becoming difficult due to the industry's fierce competition. However, all is not lost since you can stand out by pursuing a true and worthy path. To improve your professional writing skills, here is a simple five-steps process.
Prewriting
Start by gathering and preparing everything needed for the next writing steps. Here, it is crucial to begin thinking and researching to better understand your subject and acquire other background data. Also, it is paramount to find reliable sources from professionals in the field and keep a record for future referencing when writing your final piece.
Drafting
Secondly, keep your concerns about spelling, grammar and vocabulary minimal, and instead focus on organizing the thoughts into sentences. Note that You will end up with low quality finished work if you take the time to edit each sentence and paragraph during the writing stage. Using the outline created earlier to guide your writing, construct sentences and paragraphs without pausing to look back and edit.
Revising
In this third step of the process, go back to the draft, edit and rearrange the content to improve it. Here, your main concern should be to add, edit, or remove unwanted sentences or paragraphs to make your piece more appealing to the intended audience. As part of revision, reread your work to identify areas where your argument may be strengthened. Keep in mind that finding the data you need to logically support your argument may need you to conduct extra inquiry.
Editing
The fourth step involves correction of grammar, spelling, punctuation, repetition, and style. Since there is no purpose in editing parts you will later revisite, you should halt editing until you are finished revising your piece. This stage allows you to check if your article fulfills the promise made in the title. In addition, having a second reader go through your work might reveal hidden faults.
Publishing
In the final step, present your work to your targeted audience. Here, You need to add visuals and optimize it for SEO if you're adding it to a website or blog. More so, you can promote your written pieces using other means such as social media and email newsletters.
Writing as a process is not just a task for students but also important to bloggers, content marketers, and professional writers. In order to improve your online writing, You can only start to genuinely appreciate the five stages of writing if you give each stage serious thought. This will encourage you to write professionally. Furthermore, the five-step process makes your writing more consistent, comprehensible and interesting.
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