<p>The title is self-explanatory</p>
<p>By reading what others before you have written, and by practicing all the time.</p>
<p>What do you mean by reading what others before you have written</p>
<p>I mean read the writing of the all-time greats. You'll learn a lot about creating literary art from soaking in the masterpieces of Shakespeare, Dickens, etc.</p>
<p>^would those kinds of readings be better for improving your writing skills as opposed to newspapers articles, political journals, and the like?</p>
<p>^^ It depends what you want to write.
You should read the genre (though not exclusively) that you intend to write.</p>
<p>exactly. If you want to be a journalist, read The Economist.
If you want to be a poet, read some Whitman
If you want to be a novelist, read some Dickens
If you want to be a playwright, read Shakespeare (or Tom Stoppard, he's great!)</p>
<p>etc.</p>
<p>Read about everything to write about everything.</p>
<p>that all sounds awesome but I think we're overanalyzing. I just want to know how to be a better writer so you can write well in research papers, exams, school-related stuff, so your professor is impressed.</p>
<p>Read and write constantly. And by writing, even posting on CC qualifies as long as your writing is lucid and reasoned.</p>
<p>I also recommend browsing through grammar books as well as using a thesaurus while you write.</p>
<p>Read the" Elements of Style."</p>
<p>
No. You shouldn’t restrict yourself so narrowly. You shouldn’t just read one genre or one type of literature. You should read as much as possible from a variety of fields.</p>
<p>I know that writing is a HUGE strength of mine. The reason being, simply, I read and write. All. The. Time. Precision comes with practice, plain and simple.</p>
<p>I will, however, say that reading novels doesn’t mean that you will only get better at novel writing. Reading of any kind helps you with any kind of writing. Obviously read what you want to write, but that isn’t to say that reading poetry is useless to a columnist.</p>