Writing Skills
Since after launching my blog (https://malhansi.blogspot.com/) & conducting several sessions on higher studies, I have checked the first emails, SOPs, research proposals, and CVs of many people and was able to give feedback. Recently also I checked a few documents made by future PG students. I thought to share one of my experiences that may be useful for readers of this blog. It is about "Technical/formal writing". I have gathered up my thoughts and they are as follows.
1. Writing skills are not built up within one day. It is developed from the experiences you gained throughout your study/working period. One critical phase is during your bachelor's. Copying and being lazy to make your coursework, assignments, reports, research papers, thesis, etc will not improve your writing skills. These days, I have also seen that option of paying for someone for your assignment writing is available on some platforms/groups. I still remember that one of my lecturers told us when I was a freshman, "ලියන්න කම්මැලි වෙන්න එපා". Sometimes I also wondered why we had so many assignments & got bored from time to time. Even though we forgot some content of assignments with time, the skills we got will not be lost. So if you need to improve yourself, do your work by yourself. It is okay to get support or feedback from friends when you are in need. But it doesn’t mean that they have to write on behalf of you.
2. English is not our mother tongue, so it's really okay to make mistakes. But everyone can improve with time if you commit. Writing sections for IELTS and GRE also enhanced my writing skills as I feel. Even though you don't need to do them for the moment, you can study the learning materials for these exams & improve your writing skills.
3. Try to avoid making grammatical errors in official documents/emails sent to Professors or admission offices. I usually use "Grammarly" to find and correct grammatical mistakes. Because when writing a long text, we tend to make mistakes. Grammarly is available for both web applications (ex: I am using this for my emails) and "Word" documents.
4. Write, write, & write. Without taking the first attempt, we cannot grow. Practice makes perfect, so with the experience, we all learn. My writing skills were not the same when I was an undergraduate. With time, I can see the difference & growth only when I write. Getting feedback from my PhD supervisor (previously from the academic staff from UoM) for my writing is also very useful. Reviews I got for my research papers from my supervisor, co-authors and external reviewers also improved my writing styles and skills.
5. Reading also helped me with my writing work. Due to the need for GRE (for GRE we need to be familiar with uncommon vocabulary), I have started reading international journals and newspapers like The New York Times, BBC, and The Straight Times. Additionally, during my 1st year of PhD, I had to read an extensive number of papers for my literature survey and it also helped me in my writing work.
These are the things that helped me the most in my writing work and they may be also useful for some of you.