Brandon W. Jones

To be an effective leader, you must have good writing skills.  Writing skills are essential for communicating in a professional environment.  There are two things people can do to improve their writing with little effort.  

Make an Outline.  Before you write, take time to organize your thoughts.  Ask yourself, “Why am I writing this?  What message am I trying to convey? What points am I trying to make?”  Once you answer these questions, make an outline of how you will address these questions.  Make sure your thoughts are organized.  The outline will guide you, so you can write effectively and concisely.

Proofread your Writing.  I can’t tell you how many times I have received emails, letters, or other forms of written communication that contained various typos, misspellings, or grammatical errors.  The people that have sent me these documents are good writers, but they were in a hurry and failed to proofread their work before sending it.  This problem happens most often in email communications.  People hurry to type out emails and automatically hit send without proofreading.  They fail to review their document and end up having misspellings and other typos.  My advice is that whenever you write something, you should ALWAYS proofread it.  Take a few seconds to proofread your written communications.  The little effort to proofread will go a long way.

 As you practice writing an outline and proofreading your documents, your writing will drastically improve with little effort.  What other suggestions do you have for improving your writing skills?