Improve Your Writing Skills

A popular text on writing in the United States is Diana Hacker's (2009) 6th edition text A Writer's Reference.  I recommend this text to students on any collegiate level.  For those students applying to doctoral programs, this reference will help you with the writing structure, grammar, punctuation use, and mechanics of your statement of purpose and writing samples.

Hacker's (2009) text covers important organization topics like brainstorming, creating outlines, sketching a tentative thesis, and so forth.  If you are stuck on the who, what, when, where, and how of your paper, then this book can help you get started on writing. 

Some student's struggle with issues like parallel structures, coherent paragraphs, comparison and contrast, cause and effect, etc.  This text explains the nature of these components and provides examples for how to properly utilize these devices in your writing. 

In earlier posts on this website, I wrote about critical thinking in writing.  Hacker (2009) goes over analyzing arguments, evaluating evidence in one's paper, establishing a clear position, and providing a logical conclusion.  Most papers should include all of these elements.  It is wise to review these topics in preparation for doctoral work because all of these elements are required for advanced writing proficiency.  Even good writers need to improve their skills.  It is not longer sufficient to rely on your writing skills based on an undergraduate or Master's level.  This is a new day and new way of doing things, that is on the doctoral level.

Furthermore, Hacker (2009) helps students learn grammar like subject-verb agreement, passive vs active tone, singular vs plural form, word tenses (past, present, future), distinguishing between who and whom, pronoun and antecedent agreement, etc.  Often times, students struggle with the area of grammar.  Students may become confused on when to use who vs whom.  In other cases, a student may have trouble with knowing when to use singular or plural forms, especially for Latin terms like stimulus vs stimuli, phenomenon vs phenomena, etc. 

Furthermore, having a helpful reference can help students impress admissions committees and doctoral professors.  The challenge with doctoral work is not just the content and context of writing but also the structure and grammar used in the paper.  Keep in mind that professors and admissions committees will examine all of these elements carefully.  Ensure that you are one of the students that stands out for exemplary work.

Additionally, Hacker (2009) extensively covers APA, Chicago, and MLA formats, spelling, capitalization, abbreviations, and punctuation usage.  Doctoral level writing skills require that students properly punctuate their papers.  No student wants to submit a doctoral level paper with countless spelling and punctuation mistakes.  Submitting such a paper with multiple errors will result in a lowered grade.  Thus, work on improving your writing skills at your current academic level.  Why risk being disappointed in hearing that your work is not quite at the level of difficulty that the doctoral committee is seeking?

The admission statement of purpose and writing sample(s) can mean the difference between an interview invitation or a "We regret to inform you letter" (rejection letter)!  While reading and practicing writing skills seems like hard work, any student that desires to undergo a doctoral program will have just that, plenty of WORK.  Get used to the idea of having to improving work skills.  At this level, you will be receiving more critical feedback.  Ensure that you are preparing yourself, so that you have less gaps between the proficiencies expected of an entering doctoral student and one who is either in an undergraduate or Master's program.  The work requirement is simply not the same.  More is expected of students at the doctoral level. 

Bottom line is to purchase a text like Hacker's (2009) writing reference in order to improve your skills early in your academic career. 

For students that want to purchase the text now, I offer a link to the text on the left hand side of the screen.  This visual link will take you to Amazon.com, where you can choose a new or used edition of the book.

                                                  Reference

 

Hacker, D. (2009). A writer's reference (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's.