Have you ever faced a situation when the content looks neat and commonsense in your mind, but translating it on paper turns into a mess? If you have challenges articulating your ideas on paper, you aren’t alone and there’s nothing to worry about. Proper academic writing is a hard and long journey that has challenges and joys, such as thoughts mysteriously “evaporating” along the way.
However, some strategic projects, such as dissertations, are too critical to take chances with. You can’t afford to get it wrong with such a project, as the stakes are high, and your graduation depends on it. One way to go is to secure your graduation chances with a ghostwriter dissertation from professional writers. Another approach is to write it yourself and master the fundamentals of clarity and consistency. Let’s see how you can sharpen the skill of translating bright ideas into high-quality papers that fetch good grades.
Take a Deep Breath
It’s not a big surprise that clear writing starts with brain stimulation. Breathing supplies your brain with oxygen, clearing your mind to form organized thoughts. So, a helpful life hack is to take a deep breath before writing any assignment or dissertation. It will enhance your focus and relieve any anxiety that could paralyze your mind and kill your productivity. It ensures that your thoughts don’t wander somewhere or race. Moreover, slow and controlled breathing calms your brain’s electrical activity and boosts imagination. This exercise prepares you to take the first step without worrying.
Understand the Big Question
Every assignment has the main idea and goal – the ‘big question’ that defines what you should and shouldn’t do. You should always read and understand your paper’s or dissertation’s prompt to stay on track. This stage is the foundation upon which all the other phases rest because if you get it wrong here, your entire project will flop.
Capture Your Ideas
After understanding your paper’s prompt, your mind should start forming ideas on how to go about it. You need to capture these thoughts in their crude form. Begin with the central idea and branch it out into other related ideas and thoughts. Just write these points as they flow without worrying about their flow, completeness, or perfection.
Write every idea, argument, or detail you wish to remember. We recommend using various techniques to record your ideas, such as voice recording, sticky notes, and note-taking apps. Prioritizing quantity over quality is acceptable because you will address quality issues during the editing process.
Master Thought Structuring
Since you have all the raw materials available, start structuring them for clarity. Structuring is a skill that helps you organize your ideas logically before writing, e.g., your dissertation, allowing them to flow smoothly. The process also requires you to identify your main points and establish the principal message you want your readers to get. Go on to refine and expand your main points by providing evidence, explanations, and examples to concretize your arguments.
Simplify Complex Ideas
It means that clear and mindful writing requires simplicity. In fact, good writing is mostly about simplification and not complication. And you should also develop the skill of breaking down complex ideas for readers so that they can easily understand your message. Ease things for their minds so they don’t struggle to understand what you mean.
Identify and Eliminate Barriers to Clear Writing
Clear writing is a valuable skill you need in school and further in life. However, it has enemies you should identify and eliminate to make your writing crystal clear. Here is a list of the main writer’s foes that require targeted attention:
- Anxiety and nervousness. Many students become nervous, especially when writing about difficult or boring topics, or complex ones such as dissertations. This anxiety can disrupt clear thinking, negatively affecting writing clarity. Why? Because an anxious mind is in a fight-or-flight mode, it makes it difficult to access the parts of your brain that facilitate clear thinking and articulation. You can overcome this stumbling block by meditating, breathing deeply, and visualizing. Additionally, surrounding yourself with encouraging friends can reduce anxiety and boost confidence.
- Overthinking. This obstacle causes analysis paralysis, making your message unfocused and jumbled. You can overcome this problem by breaking your message into manageable pieces and simplifying complex ideas.
- Emotional distractions. Strong emotions can negatively impact your writing clarity, even if these emotional issues are unrelated to your academics. These feelings can break your focus and cause you to write incoherently. Do you need this? And if you are going through a problematic emotional period, it’s really better to take the time off to reflect and recollect your thoughts before writing. You may also practice deep breathing and meditation to help you calm down. A community of friends and family members can also facilitate your emotional healing.
- Information bloat. Although you need enough information to write clearly, too much can be counterproductive because it makes it hard to sift through things and determine the most suitable ideas to write. So what’s the effect? You start to ramble and write disjointed papers or dissertations. Solve this problem by prioritizing your ideas and identifying the ones you should write about. Improving your summarizing skills is also critical because it gives readers clear and easily digestible information.
- Internal and external distractions. Distractions can also affect clarity because you can’t focus on what you want to write. Remove external distractions from your writing environment. Turn off all technological disruptions, such as phone notifications.
- Physical challenges. Writing when you are mentally or physically tired, hungry, or sick can impair your mental functions, resulting in unclear writing and thinking. Therefore, only write when you feel your mind and body are in optimal functional conditions.
Improve Your Overall Writing Skills
Lastly, don’t forget that certain writing skills can also boost your clarity. Do the following to achieve this goal:
- Expand your grammar and vocabulary to express your thoughts more clearly
- Write regularly to improve your writing accuracy and confidence
- Mind your tone and style and develop a unique voice by trying a variety of writing styles
- Hone your editing skills to make your assignments concise and clear
- Use computer fundamentals to complete your tasks efficiently
- Improve your sentence construction
- Leverage feedback to know whether your writing is clear to others
Parting Shot
Clear writing is a critical skill every student should develop. It ensures that readers don’t waste their time and strain their minds trying to find out what you meant. So, feel free to apply these insights to elevate clarity in your future assignments and dissertation.