CONTINUED: How to improve your writing so you can get ahead at school and at work: secrets from a math "un-genius"

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Educate yourself

You may have noticed that there’s a mountain of information out there about how to improve your writing. Up until now, I’ve purposely stayed away from quoting writing experts for the simple reason that I don’t want to get too bogged down in any one school of thought. Also, I’m a firm believer that good writing is rooted in experience—your life experience and the act of practicing the craft.

For what it’s worth, here are a few writing books that I’ve found especially helpful:

• Bird by Bird: Some Instruction on the Writing Life, by Anne Lamott
• On Writing, by Stephen King
• On Writing Well, by William Zinsser

And I recently came across this list of top 10 writing books from Paste Magazine—there are definitely some gems in here I’ll be checking out myself.

Hire a professional

There’s a reason great writers have editors—nobody’s perfect and all writing can be improved.

In fact, many have more than one. In print publishing, the finished manuscript is just the beginning. The words then have to go through a substantive edit, a copy edit, and a final proofread. Often, a professional fact-checker reviews the document to confirm all the historical facts, cultural references, and other important citations are correct. And this is all before the graphic designers get their hot little hands on it!

Then those poor words get poked and prodded again to make sure nothing has been moved around, misplaced or forgotten during the design process. And then the printing process begins….

You get the idea.

We can’t all hire a professional to make sure our copy is “clean” and error-free. But you can take turns playing editor with a fellow student or co-worker. Another pair of eyes will definitely improve your essay (unless they belong to your mom, who thinks everything you do is flawless.)

The final word

I’m not professing to solve all of your writing woes—far from it. I just hope the tips I’ve gleaned in my writing career so far can help you in some small way. But don’t get me wrong, writing is hard. And to get good at it, you have to be willing to put some time in.

If you don’t have the time, or the inclination…I’ll forgive you. But I beg you not to ignore the fact that, in this idea-driven economy, words are a powerful communication tool capable of connecting people and ideas and sparking change. Can I get an “Amen!”

Which brings me to my final, and most important tip: just have fun with it! Writing is a multi-headed beast that can bring great pleasure and deep pain all at once. Even the hard work of crafting good sentences can leave you with moments of creative elation, or at the very least, a sense of profound satisfaction.

You might never be the next Hemmingway. But you can learn something he strove to do: write one good sentence a day.

P.S.: Remember that math exam? I passed—barely. Yep, 51 percent, baby!