Writing can be tricky. Whether you are supposed to write a paper forschool, a novel to be published and distributed around the world, or a newspaper article in a small town’s newspaper it can bedemanding work and take a lot of time and research. There are a thousand tricks on the Internet to help you to have less trouble writing papers, books, and everything else. Some of these tricks help, some do not; however, there is one trick that seemsto always help, even outside of the field of writing. Simply put, the trick is to avoid procrastinating. While this might seem simple or elementary many people will be honest enough to tell themselves that they have a problem with putting off work until a more convenient time. Unfortunately, it never seems like that more convenient time ever arrives until the month, week, oreven night before you need to be finished working. Also unfortunate is the fact that most people do not do their best work when they are rushed and have to work double-time to finish what they are doing.While there is a chance that you are one of the few gifted people that can work at full capacity the night before a deadline, most people need to work on getting work done before the last minute. Usually there is a drastic and noticeable improvement inmost people’s work after they address their issue of procrastination. And, if that is not enough reason to stop procrastinating and do work when you first get the chance, you also avoid the feeling of having a project hanging over your head, making youworry all the time. There are few feelings as good as knowing that you have all your work done and can take it easy for a little while after putting in some hard work on finishing a project.
Starting From Scratch
Most people that have had several classes in English and Writing have had just as many people give advice on the best way to start apaper. Since this is a very common problem for writers to have it is a very important issue to address as soon as possible. There are a million ways to start a paper, memoire, book, article, or any other form of writing, but most people have only one or two ways that really work well for them. And, if you are the kind of person who sits down to write and cannot seem to get anything to sound right, you may want to try a strategy that some people may call elementary: Start from scratch.Most people lack the ability to simply sit down and write Shakespeare without editing once, twice, or half a million times; however, in most situations, you have the option to edit your work if you do not like something you have written. So, many peopleuse this editing step to really write their masterpieces. If you feel like taking a new approach to writing then try it. Simply sit down, get an idea of the topic, and write everything that comes to your mind. Do not worry about spelling, punctuation, flow of thoughts, grammar, or anything except for getting all your thoughts on paper. Now all that is left to do is edit. Re-word and arrange what you have written, delete and add details, and just keep editing it into a piece of art. Many people find this much easier than trying to sit down and come up with pure genius out of thin air. Also, if you happen to have a problem with forgetting or neglecting to proof-read your writing this will help, or force, you to read everything you write carefullyand edit your work.
Discover Yourself
Do you have a specific thing that you always do when you are writing? Maybe you always put on your favorite radiostation and just let it play while you write, or maybe you always have a movie playing on the other side of the room while youtype away at your keyboard. Maybe you always have a cup of coffee and a donut before sitting down to write, or maybe you typewhile snacking on candy bars and soda. You might even have a hat that you always wear while writing or a jacket that you haveon every time that you sit down to type articles. Whatever the case, there are several scientific studies that suggest you should continue these habits to improve your writing ability.It is a well-known psychology fact that following a pattern consciously can make your subconscious mind follow a pattern as well. So, if you always do one thing while writing then you start to condition your mind to associate that behavior with writingso that every time that you perform that behavior your mind gets into gear for writing. This kind of conditioning is widely used in other areas of psychology and can have surprisingly dramatic effects on one’s ability to adjust one’s self to an action quickly. Obviously this tactic of conditioning a behavior with writing will only work well if the behavior is usually used while writing, since if you do this behavior all the time then your mind will not learn to especially associate it with writing specifically.Habits can be very helpful in some cases. If you do not have a behavior, article of clothing, or other action you already associate with writing then you may consider trying to program yourself with a behavior. While it is not very helpful at first, itcan eventually help you jump directly into writing and working more efficiently.
Protect Your Work
Many people make money by posting their writings, opinions, or art on the Internet. It can be fun, easy, and convenient to earn money this way. Unfortunately, if you do this and get many visitors then you may be in danger of your work being plagiarised. Most people do not mind if someone e-mails a web comic to their best friend but copying someone else’s blog post and re-posting it as your own work is stealing, plagiarism, and just dishonest. If you post your work on the Internet in a way similar to this and worry that your work might be plagiarised then there are ways for you to protect your work against being stolen.
Websites such as Copyscape (http://www.copyscape.com) work to prevent this exact problem. These websites offer protection against plagiarism by allowing website owners to check if any work on their website has been used by other sources on the Internet in order to track down plagiarists. Some of these websites also provide preventive measures such as banners and warnings that can be posted on your website to warn visitors that work on the website is protected from plagiarism. Copyscape offers these services at no cost and can be very helpful to anyone posting their work on the Internet.
Most people want to protect their work. After putting your time and effort into a piece of work you probably do not want other people passing it off as their own work. When others take credit for your work and post it on their own websites they not only insult you but can even take visitors away from your site if they are looking for the information you provided but find the plagiarists website first. Protecting your work can help get you the credit you deserve for your work and earn you more visitors on your website, something everyone wants.
Avoiding Plagiarism
If you have ever taken a writing or English class in High School then there is a good chance that you have had “The Talk.” It scares many people and can even make some people want to avoid writing in general. This talk is the talk about plagiarism. When many people are first told about plagiarism it can seem like a very scary thing. Many people ask themselves, “What if I accidentally say something that someone else already said or do not give credit to my sources correctly?” While it is true that the punishments for plagiarism in most schools is rather strict and even fines and penalties you can accumulate outside of school for plagiarism can be painful, it is not hard to avoid plagiarism.
As long as you are writing your own thoughts you do not have much to worry about in terms of plagiarism. If you want to double check to make sure that you have not plagiarised anything then simply take sections of your writing, put quotes around it, search for it in a search engine such as Google or Ask.com, and check if any of the first results are close enough to be considered plagiarism. If you do not find any then you can be pretty sure that you are not plagiarising. If you need help citing your sources of information then you can easily find guides for citing sources online. Most forms of writing are done in MLA format, so simply use a search engine to look up something such as “MLA Citing (Source category such as Newspaper, website, etc)”. Most sources require basic things such as an author, date, title, medium, etc, but the order and format you use is very important in MLA so an online guide is a very helpful thing for many writers.
Discover Yourself
There are several things that can make it difficult to be a writer of any kind. If you do not work well under pressure and are suddenly forced to work under a very demanding deadline then you may find it hard to be efficient. On the other hand, if you need a strict schedule and need to feel pressured to get motivated then it might be hard to work well under a loose deadline. If you work well with background noise then it can be hard working in silence, whereas people who are easily distracted can find it hard to work in a noisy area. These are only a few examples of the countless things that can influence how well a writer can perform. Luckily, these things can also be very helpful for a writer. For example, if you realize that you cannot work in silence then you can listen to music or turn on a television when you are working to help you concentrate. If you work best under a strict deadline and pressure then you can set strict deadlines for yourself and maybe even get your editor or someone “above you” to enforce those deadlines to help you. In other words, knowing yourself well can be the key to improving your writing style. If you are able to analyze how you work in certain environments then you can edit your environment to support your work. If you do not think that your environment has a drastic effect on your work performance then try to work in a very different place than you normally work. If you normally work alone at home then try writing at a crowded restaurant and see how that effects your work. If you want to improve the things you put out then you first need to improve the things you take in from your environment.
Losing your Focus to Regain your Focus
If you have ever had a serious writing job or have even felt a lot of pressure from a school paper then you have probably experienced having a loud head. Having a loud head means that there are a lot of ideas bouncing around in your head but it is almost like you cannot focus on a single thought long enough to write anything. Usually this results in a lot of wasted time with you either staring at a blank piece of paper or a blank computer monitor. When this happens, sometimes the best way to quiet your thoughts is to stop thinking about the work you have to do.
Forgetting about the job-at-hand can either be done by taking a long break or simply by doing another task for a few minutes. One way that many people have found to quiet their thoughts is to get a tiny rock garden, similar to the large rock gardens that you might have seen in front of Asian-inspired buildings or some New Age buildings or stores. Raking these gardens, which can be small enough to fit in a small box on your desk or table, can calm your nerves and help you to organize your thoughts. If you think you may need a longer break from your work than this then you can do almost anything you like to do, though calming things are suggested, such as resting in a hammock or watching television. Whatever you do, just make sure that you find some way to get your mind off work long enough to organize your thoughts and to relieve some of the pressure you might be feeling. The way that you do this is not important. If a strategy works for you then it is a successful strategy for you to use.
