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How do You Know Your Writing is Improving?

In the previous blog post, Nonto spoke to a very important concept of seeing feedback in a different light. Feedback in academic writing is very important to help you improve your written piece and notice some writing habits that you may have, that you may not have been aware of. While going through some of the feedback I received from my supervisor on one of my written pieces, a question came to me that I am sure many of you have had before. 

How do I know that my writing is improving?

My idea of improvement in writing practice is receiving a document with no comments at all. I have come to realize that is never the case. So how would I know that my writing is getting better? With many things that we do in life there are some indicators that alert us that there is some form of improvement. Think about exercise. When you embark on the journey of a new exercise plan within the journey there are indicators that improvement is happening such as an improved running time, increased flexibility, gaining muscle or even losing weight. Those indicators give you some idea that you’re going in the right direction. However, in our writing most of us only really know if we are improving from assessments or feedback from our supervisors. Without some feedback we rarely know whether our own writing has improved, gotten worse or are we treading water. To answer this question for myself I decided to go through some of my older pieces of writing and I came across my honors research proposal.

When I pulled out this written piece, I was surprised to see how clunky and unclear some parts of my writing were. When I wrote it, I remember thinking it was a great, clear, informative and free of grammatical errors. I was very proud of it. Then I was not using Grammarly, which is a great tool to detect obvious writing errors. Some of the things I noticed in my written piece included sentences that were too long, a lack of evidence for statements put forward and not explaining/elaborating enough on the theory I presented in my literature review. It was quite surprising to notice this especially because I never took the time to look back or reflect on my writing practice. And that is when it hit me, the indicator I was looking for. By looking back at some of my old written pieces I was able to notice what has changed since then. 

Not to say that my writing practice is currently perfect but the practice of looking back allowed me to locate what has changed and what writing habits I still have that require attention. Because writing is a journey and only gets better with practice, small indicators can help you locate where you are and where you can improve. If you care to find some of your earlier writing, even from a few months ago, do you notice a difference? Did you notice a difference that you received feedback on? It may be a minor or major difference but it sure is a test or indication of improvement. I hope this practice will help you notice that even in the journey of writing there are milestones and improvements that can act as indicators. 

Yours Truly,

Nonku Mkwanazi


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