How to Make Your Ideas Heard

Chances are, when Rihanna's followers saw eight- to thirteen-year-old school kids correcting one of her tweets, they didn't pay much attention to her tweet's content. Instead, they likely laughed at her poor grammar. Rihanna posted, "She's my rock so I hold on to she tight!!!" The kids corrected "she" to "her." There should also be a comma after "rock" and "tight" should be "tightly."

This is just one anecdote illustrating the importance of writing well. Writing is a powerful tool to convey ideas––and writing effectively is the best way to ensure that these ideas, not the poor writing mechanics, are heard. Continuously working to improve writing is the cornerstone to mastering writing, whether it's a quick and catchy social media post or long and complicated research papers. Three ways in which students can do so are making clear claims early on, writing accurately and concisely, and creating an appropriate and intentional tone.

One method to improve writing is to make claims early on. Many students begin paragraphs with facts that intend to provide background but are actually dull and boring. For example, “Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel depicts a post-epidemic world, where almost all of the world’s population has been lost to the Georgia Flu” (Heyler, “Station Eleven Essay”). By contrast, a sentence such as, “Exposure to just one point-of-view is a slippery slope and can often narrow one’s scope of thinking” (Heyler, “Fall Journal”), does a significantly better job of introducing an opinion. Debatable, engaging, and grabbing the reader’s attention, this sentence is an effective hook and claim.

Concision and precision are also crucial to a well-written essay. Redundant phrases take away from the piece’s effectiveness. For example, in the sentence, “Shakespeare Navigators was most helpful in helping me understand... Macbeth” (Heyler, “Winter Journal”), the phrase “helpful in helping” is both awkward and redundant. By rewriting this to “Shakespeare Navigators was the best secondary source in helping me understand Macbeth…,” the sentence flows more smoothly and concisely. Using words, phrases, clauses and punctuation correctly is likewise important to concision and flow. Correct grammar makes writing clear and focused, avoiding jumbled, confusing, or wordy passages.

Intentionally setting an appropriate tone is an additional method to improve writing. Writing should take advantage of diction, syntax and structure to create a tone that is appropriate and engaging for the audience. For example, in an essay, one student wrote, “Thus, the theme is a powerful aspect of literature that has the ability to communicate ideas and broaden readers’ horizons of thinking” (Heyler, “Short Story Essay”). However, “thus” adds no additional meaning to the sentence but does create an elevated tone that is not appropriate for this assignment. By taking the word out, the sentence is equally powerful. To set the tone, writers can make use of diction, syntax and structure. This vocabulary, punctuation and arrangement of sentences is fundamental in crafting a piece of writing. One writer makes use of the dash in the sentence, “Every day, bits and pieces of cultures–art forms, languages, clothes–are lost” (Heyler, “Winter Journal”). The dash creates a feeling that the example almost sound like an afterthought and sets a thoughtful tone. Taking advantage of tone is integral to effective and improved writing.

    Communication is one of the most important skills on the planet. Writing in particular is a tool that has tremendous potential, should students choose to harness and take advantage of it. To craft effective writing, unlike Rihanna’s tweet, students should consider making claims early on, writing concisely and precisely, and setting an appropriate tone. Not only do good writers give off a vibe that they are well-educated, they also have the capacity to voice out ideas and be heard. Whether or not the audience agrees with the writer’s argument is much less relevant––the point is, writers are getting their ideas out there and starting conversations about important topics in today’s world.