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10 Writing Strategies to Take Your Papers to the Next Level
Academic Writing
10 min read

10 Writing Strategies to Take Your Papers to the Next Level

Explore StudyPro's 10 effective writing strategies for students! Practical and tailored to academic writing.
Practical Writing Strategies
Written by
Kateryna B.
Published on
Feb 27, 2025
Table of contents
Don't you think you have what it takes to engage readers and get good grades? Check out our 10 writing strategies to start writing like a pro!
No matter how much research and brainstorming you do, you never manage to ace your writing assignments. Words simply escape you, and you can't get your point across the way you want. The result? You don't remember the last time you got the top grade for a writing assignment.
You're in luck: StudyPro experts selected the 10 most effective strategies for students who struggle with writing. Keep reading to discover how to streamline your writing process and craft engaging, compelling, and A-worthy papers!

10 Tried-and-True Strategies: Your Snapshot

So, what are writing strategies that can help you take your writing to the next level?
You can boost your writing skills by:
  • Taking an example from the pros
  • Expanding your vocabulary
  • Remembering to take breaks while writing
  • Reading, reading, and reading
  • Employing transitional phrases
  • Outlining before drafting
  • Freewriting to overcome writer's block
  • Choosing the right topics for your writing
  • Keeping it straightforward and concise
  • Revising your draft effectively

1. Learn from the Pros

In most cases, the best way to learn how to write a specific type of work is by actively reading its examples created by your mentors or professional writers. For instance, if you're tasked with writing a narrative essay, check out narrative essay examples provided by your instructor or available in your institution's academic database.
Of course, this writing strategy isn't as simple as mindlessly reading an example once and moving on to the next one. You need to actively engage with the text in front of you by:
  • Mind mapping its main idea, key concepts and points, high-frequency words, etc.
  • Identifying patterns in how the author uses language and vocabulary to communicate ideas (e.g., literary devices, use of signposting)
  • Analyzing the text's structure and the way ideas are organized
  • Noticing how each passage ties to the text's topic and context

2. Work on Your Vocabulary

Writing vocabulary is only a component of your overall vocabulary, but its size determines your ability to convey ideas with nuance and in detail. Luckily for you, there's a way to expand your vocabulary: reading (it'll also help you avoid making mistakes with commonly misspelled words).
If you're already an avid reader (or you need to see results quickly), there are three more ways you can build your vocabulary:
  • Use a thesaurus. If you get repetitive in word choice or words often stay on the tip of your tongue, make a habit of looking up synonyms in an online thesaurus.
  • Play word games. Games like the Spelling Bee, Scrabble, or Wordle will help you retrieve the words you know from your memory more easily.
  • Subscribe to a newsletter. Websites like Thesaurus.com and Merriam-Webster offer "word of the day" newsletters to expand your vocabulary one word a day.

3. Take Breaks

While different people have different writing strategies to organize their process, spending hours in front of the screen shouldn't be one of them.
If you're well-acquainted with the writing process firsthand, you know full well that after about an hour, writing becomes increasingly monotonous. You may start struggling with finding the right words, keeping your sentences concise, or conveying your ideas in a logical order. Focusing on the source material may also suddenly become challenging.
So, factor in the time you need to let yourself rest. The rule of thumb is to take a five- to ten-minute break after an hour of writing. You can use the break to:
  • Move around: go on a short walk, do some chores, or work out
  • Get creative: brainstorm, doodle, play a game, learn something new
  • Let your brain rest: drink a cup of tea or coffee, listen to music, watch a YouTube video

4. Read as Much as You Write

Our first writing strategy was more about getting inspired by examples pertinent to your specific assignment. This strategy, however, boils down to one idea: you need to become an avid reader to get better at writing in general.
You can read whatever piques your interest, whether it's fiction or non-fiction. That said, you also need to read mindfully for it to be one of the more creative writing strategies for students. Here's what it can involve:
  • Asking whether the writing is good and what makes it so (e.g., the focus on details)
  • Analyzing the writing style: the tense used, word choice, present literary devices, etc.
  • Noticing how the grammar and vocabulary choices drive or enhance the narrative
If reading introduces you to new ideas, don't hesitate to reflect and build on them. As long as you don't repeat someone's words verbatim without citing the source, this isn't plagiarism.

5. Spice It Up with Transitional Phrases

Transitions can make or break the flow of ideas in your text. Fail to incorporate them, and your ideas will come across as a bunch of disjointed paragraphs instead of a unified narrative.
The general rule for acing transitions is that extra words and phrases should reflect connections between paragraphs or sentences. Those connections can describe causation, chronological order, combinations, contrast, importance, or similarity, among others.
Here are some common transitional words and phrases:
  • Overall...
  • Moreover...
  • All in all...
  • Finally...
  • In similar fashion...
  • As a result...
  • In the meantime...
  • Subsequently...
  • In contrast...
  • To illustrate...
  • Most importantly...
Don't know where to start? Check out our guide on sentence starters for essays and other assignments!
While transitions are important, use them sparingly. Otherwise, you risk overloading your text with unnecessary transitions that highlight obvious connections.

6. Learn to Create Effective Outlines

You might imagine writing as a highly creative process during which authors simply sit down and start pouring out their soul onto a sheet of paper. But that's far from reality: in practice, authors usually outline their works before they begin to write.
Writing an outline will help you ensure that your ideas flow in a logical order and that every paragraph and point has its place in the text. It's also important for complying with your assignment requirements (e.g., following a specific essay structure).
To create an effective outline:
  • Understand the purpose of your text and its intended audience
  • Develop its thesis or central idea
  • Do research if necessary
  • Start brainstorming ideas
  • Select the best ideas and group those that are related
  • Organize those groups in a logical manner (e.g., from general to concrete)
  • Add evidence and examples if necessary
  • Create titles for main sections and their subsections (if applicable)

7. Overcome Writer's Block with Freewriting

Writer's block can be the bane of your existence: you sit in front of an empty page, repeatedly starting to write and deleting the new content or frantically trying to come up with what to write. If that rings a bell, here's some good news: even award-winning writers face writer's block from time to time.
Freewriting is one of the most effective strategies for writing if you're struggling with this issue. When you're freewriting, you're supposed to write down whatever comes to your mind for a specific amount of time (e.g., 15 minutes). No editing, no re-reading your own writing, just typing.
Freewriting will help you overcome the main culprit behind writer's block: the impulsive need to come up with one perfect sentence after another. When you freewrite, the quality or organization of your writing simply doesn't matter. There's but one rule: keep writing!

8. Ask the Five "Why?" Questions

If you get stuck when you need to choose a topic, one of our writing strategies for students is for you. It'll help you go from a general subject to a particular topic that you can discuss in depth.
This strategy involves iterating through the five "Why?" questions on the subject. For example, if you need to discuss the French Revolution, these five questions can look like this:
  • Why did the French Revolution happen?
  • Out of all the factors, why was the financial crisis the most impactful one?
  • Why did the civil unrest get prompted by the financial crisis?
  • Why did the monarchy fail to address the declining standards of living?
  • Why did this failure lead to the proliferation of revolutionary ideology?
These five questions can guide your research and brainstorming and help you settle on a topic, such as "Proliferation of revolutionary ideology as a response to the declining standards of living before the French Revolution."

9. Be Purposeful with Words

Impactful writing isn't always fancy or elaborate. In fact, authors like Ernest Hemingway believed that you could accomplish more when you use fewer words and get your point across as straightforwardly as possible.
So, if you're looking to improve your own writing, avoid stuffing as many adjectives and adverbs as you can in every sentence. Instead, focus on selecting the right words to communicate your ideas and explain your thinking.
Once you get comfortable with a concise, straight-to-the-point writing style, you can begin experimenting with form and language to enhance your writing. For example, you can:
  • Practice describing details using short sentences without action verbs
  • Start the introduction with a rhetorical question
  • Use bold to highlight your topic sentence or central concepts
  • Structure your story as a conversation
  • Present your narrative as a series of letters

10. Always Proofread & Edit

Accept one simple truth: your drafts will never be perfect on the first try. That's why revising your own writing is one of the most crucial writing strategies for students.
To do it effectively, set aside enough time to proofread and edit your draft after you let it sit, ideally overnight. Here are four tips for revising your draft like a pro:
  • Use proofreading tools like Grammarly to quickly fix grammar and punctuation errors, misspellings, and typos
  • Read your draft in its entirety and remove everything that doesn't contribute to your main idea
  • Re-read your draft and ensure that every sentence gets your point across as intended
  • Re-read your draft once more and examine its organization; change the sentence or paragraph order if necessary
Not sure if AI writing tools are worth your time? Check out our FAQs on AI writing to find out!

5 Extra Writing Tips You Should Give a Try

These ten strategies aren't enough for you? Don't worry: we gathered five more powerful writing strategies for all students and writing hacks to set you up for success:
  • Think critically about your own writing. When you revise your draft, sometimes you need to recognize that some passages you adore need to go because they feel out of place or don't add value to the rest of the text. Remove them with a steady hand.
  • Don't strive to reinvent the wheel. In most cases, you don't have to come up with a never-before-seen structure or narrative. So, get inspired by others' examples and make use of templates.
  • Leverage AI for prewriting steps. This is one of our top 3 writing hacks for students. AI writing tools like StudyPro can help you come up with new ideas or sum up lengthy sources in a matter of seconds.
  • Don't embellish your language. Sometimes, simple words like "challenge" or "difficult" are the ones that get your point across the best. If that's the case, use them without second-guessing yourself.
  • Start with a strong introduction. Whenever possible, strive to grab the reader's attention early with the very first sentence.

In Closing

At the end of the day, there's only one way you can improve your writing skills: practice. So, write for yourself, all while keeping our strategies in mind, of course. You can find tons of prompts for both academic and creative writing to help you practice with purpose.
If you ever find yourself stuck, don't forget: even the most accomplished writers sometimes struggle with writer's block and have to extensively revise their drafts. So, if you're prone to striving for perfection, give yourself a break and lower the bar for success.
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Frequently asked questions

Writing strategies are tried-and-true ways to improve one's writing skills. They include:
  • Getting inspired by similar works
  • Continuously building vocabulary
  • Taking regular breaks
  • Becoming an avid reader
  • Using effective transitions
  • Outlining before writing
  • Freewriting when stuck
  • Selecting the right topic with five "Why?" questions
  • Being direct and concise in your writing
  • Thoroughly revising drafts
To make your writing more engaging for readers, start your introduction with a strong hook. It can be a powerful rhetorical question, a surprising stat or fact, or a funny anecdote. On top of that, use vivid descriptions throughout the text and follow the "show, don't tell" principle. Active voice, strong action verbs, and metaphors and similes can also go a long way in engaging your readers.
There are three main rhetorical strategies you can leverage when writing:
  • Logos, or the appeal to reason, involves using logical arguments and reasoning to convince your reader.
  • Ethos, or ethical appeal, leverages the writer's or source's credibility, reliability, and authoritativeness.
  • Pathos, or emotional appeal, aims to sway the audience's disposition by impacting their emotions with interviews, case studies, or personal narratives.
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