what are the benefits of writing essays

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The importance of essay writing in developing critical thinking and communication skills.

Essay writing is an essential skill that students develop throughout their academic journey. It serves as a powerful tool for expressing ideas, exploring concepts, and engaging in critical thinking. Essays enable individuals to articulate their thoughts, analyze information, and present arguments in a coherent and structured manner.

Understanding the purpose of essay writing is crucial for students to excel in their academic pursuits. Essays allow individuals to demonstrate their knowledge, communicate their insights, and showcase their ability to construct compelling arguments. Through essays, students can delve into complex topics, engage with different perspectives, and develop their writing skills.

Essentially, the objective of essay writing is to cultivate intellectual growth, foster analytical thinking, and enhance communication skills. Essays provide a platform for individuals to articulate their opinions, support their arguments with evidence, and engage with various academic disciplines. By mastering the art of essay writing, students can not only succeed academically but also sharpen their ability to express themselves effectively.

The Significance of Essay Writing

Essay writing is a crucial skill that fosters critical thinking, creativity, and clarity of expression. Through the process of composing essays, individuals learn to organize their thoughts coherently, present their ideas effectively, and support arguments with evidence and logic.

Essays enable writers to explore complex topics in-depth, analyze data, and develop a deeper understanding of their subject matter. They serve as a platform for sharing perspectives, exploring multiple viewpoints, and engaging in thoughtful discourse.

Moreover, essay writing plays a vital role in education by assessing students’ comprehension, communication skills, and ability to articulate ideas. It encourages students to research, synthesize information, and construct well-reasoned arguments, thereby enhancing their intellectual growth and academic performance.

Exploring the Importance of Essays

Essays play a crucial role in academia as they allow students to demonstrate their understanding of a subject or topic. Through essay writing, students can showcase their critical thinking skills, analytical abilities, and writing proficiency. Essays also provide a platform for students to organize their thoughts, research, and arguments in a coherent manner.

Moreover, essays help students develop valuable skills such as research, reading comprehension, and communication. Writing essays also encourages students to engage with complex ideas, formulate their own opinions, and articulate them effectively. Additionally, essays enable students to practice and enhance their writing skills, which are essential for academic and professional success.

Overall, essays are essential for academic growth, intellectual development, and effective communication. By engaging in essay writing, students not only demonstrate their knowledge but also refine their critical thinking and communication skills, preparing them for future educational and professional endeavors.

Advantages of Essay Writing

Essay writing offers numerous benefits to students, professionals, and individuals looking to enhance their communication skills and critical thinking abilities. Some of the key advantages of essay writing include:

Key Elements of a Good Essay

1. Clear Thesis Statement: A good essay always begins with a clear thesis statement that presents the main point or argument of the paper.

2. Well-Structured Organization: An effective essay is well-organized, with each paragraph flowing logically from the previous one and supporting the overall thesis.

3. Strong Supporting Evidence: A good essay should include convincing evidence to support the main argument, such as examples, statistics, or quotations.

4. Critical Thinking: A good essay demonstrates critical thinking skills by analyzing and evaluating the topic or argument from different perspectives.

5. Cohesive Transitions: Transitions help to connect ideas and paragraphs smoothly, ensuring that the essay is easy to follow and understand.

6. Clear and Concise Language: A good essay uses clear and concise language to convey ideas effectively and avoid confusion.

7. Proper Grammar and Punctuation: A well-written essay adheres to the rules of grammar and punctuation, enhancing the clarity and professionalism of the writing.

Types of Essays and Their Purpose

Essay writing encompasses various types of essays, each serving a specific purpose. Understanding the different types of essays can help writers effectively convey their message and engage readers. Here are some common types of essays and their purposes:

By understanding the purpose of each type of essay, writers can effectively structure their writing to achieve their intended goals and connect with their audience.

Developing Critical Thinking Through Essays

Essay writing is a powerful tool for developing critical thinking skills. When students engage in the process of crafting an essay, they are required to analyze, evaluate, and synthesize information to form coherent arguments and make persuasive points. This process not only hones their writing abilities but also strengthens their ability to think critically.

By researching and organizing their thoughts in a logical manner, students are forced to consider different perspectives, question assumptions, and draw reasoned conclusions. The act of writing an essay challenges students to think deeply about the topic at hand, apply analytical skills, and present their ideas in a cohesive and persuasive manner.

Furthermore, essays encourage students to approach complex issues from multiple angles, consider evidence, weigh arguments, and develop well-structured arguments. Through the essay writing process, students learn to think critically, evaluate information critically, and communicate their ideas effectively.

By engaging in essay writing, students not only demonstrate their understanding of the subject matter but also develop the essential skill of critical thinking, which is invaluable in academic, professional, and personal contexts.

Essay Writing as a Tool for Communication

Essay writing serves as a powerful tool for communication, allowing individuals to express their thoughts, opinions, and arguments in a structured and coherent manner. Through the process of composing an essay, writers can effectively convey their ideas to a targeted audience, whether it be academic peers, colleagues, or the general public.

Essays enable writers to present complex concepts, analysis, and interpretations in a clear and organized fashion, helping to facilitate understanding and dialogue on a particular topic or issue. By carefully crafting their arguments and providing evidence to support their claims, writers can engage readers and persuade them to consider different perspectives.

Furthermore, essay writing encourages critical thinking and reflective analysis, as writers must evaluate their own ideas and the ideas of others in order to develop a well-rounded and persuasive argument. This process of engagement and exploration fosters intellectual growth and enhances communication skills.

In essence, essay writing serves as a tool for communication that not only allows individuals to articulate their thoughts effectively but also cultivates a deeper understanding of complex ideas and promotes meaningful dialogue among diverse audiences.

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By the Northeastern Community

What are the benefits of essay writing.

by Matthew | Sep 6, 2022 | Uncategorized | 0 comments

If you are a student in college or university, you may be wondering why essays feature so heavily in your academic career. Regardless of your major, you will probably have to write several essays each semester. In fact, essay writing is viewed as such an important skill that students are given basic essay writing assignments from as early as elementary school.

Because essay writing can be a challenge, many students naturally feel averse to it. With so many overwhelming commitments and deadlines, it is lucky that students can easily order essay online to avoid failing. That said, essay writing can help you to gain valuable lifelong skills under the right circumstances. This article will explore some of them.

Why do we get many essay assignments?

Before we go into how essay writing is useful, let us look at why students have to write so many essays. Although the academic essay has been an integral part of the higher education experience for centuries, students today are given more frequent and harder essay assignments. Why?

You may be surprised to learn that the Internet played a crucial role in increasing our essay writing workload. Because so much information has been moved from dusty tomes and academic textbooks onto the web, people can access information quicker and more conveniently than ever.

Therefore, there is no longer a need for the academic system to prioritize memorization and recollection. While examinations and recitation used to be the standard way to assess learning, they are now largely irrelevant. Instead, educational institutions are focusing their efforts on developing higher-level abilities such as critical thinking.

Hence, essay writing is now widely utilized as an effective method of evaluating the understanding and analytical skills of students. If you are wondering how this shift in the education system helps you, here are the advantages that you can gain from essay writing.

1. You learn to research and analyze evidence

If students want to create an excellent essay, they must be able to correctly locate and make use of evidence that is relevant to the topic. Finding relevant sources of information from academic journals, the Internet, and independent research is a painstaking and involved process. When doing research for your essay, you learn how to conduct efficient research and separate useful knowledge from extraneous (albeit interesting) information.

Instead of simply regurgitating concepts that you studied in class, essay writing forces you to use critical thinking. You need to determine the kind of evidence that you need and undertake the relevant research to find it. Then, you must differentiate reputable and disreputable sources of information and apply standards to the evidence that you use to support your claims.

2. You learn to construct and defend arguments

It is futile having a strong opinion about a subject without having the skills to explain your point of view and persuade others to accept it. In the process of writing an essay, you learn how to formulate and defend your arguments. You learn to develop your idea from a single point and expand it into several smaller arguments that cover various facets of the issue. In short, you learn how to give your arguments substance.

Being able to effectively communicate one’s ideas is an important part of any profession. It also helps you to become a more well-rounded person. When writing an argumentative essay, you practice anticipating and addressing opposing views, which teaches you to see your issue from different perspectives. Through essay writing, you learn to articulate your thoughts in a way that is both clear and convincing.

3. You improve your writing skills

Essay writing allows you to put your talents to the test. You can improve your overall writing ability and confidence by routinely practicing writing. When you write an essay, you become familiar with mechanical writing skills, such as grammar, spelling, and punctuation, which are critical in all forms of written communication. Outside of academia, these writing skills will help you in many aspects of your future career.

Furthermore, essay writing provides you with the opportunity to receive expert feedback. Higher education is a time for academic and personal growth. Essay writing allows you to share your thoughts and writing skills with respected professionals who have a wealth of insight and experience. Whether you send your essay to a professional editor or your professor, you will come away with valuable advice on how to improve.

4. You learn to organize effectively

Essay writing is not merely about writing. It takes a fair measure of time management and organization to fit research, planning, and writing into your busy study schedule. You also apply organizing skills to information as you consider how to best structure your content to create the most compelling arguments. As you move blocks of time and pieces of information around in your head, you become a more effective organizer.

Students are receiving essay assignments more regularly today than ever before. As essay requirements become more demanding and difficult, it helps to remember that the exercise is designed to develop your skills and not just a sadistic requirement from your professors. However, if you are truly unable to cope with your essay workload, it can help to hire a professional essay writer to lend a hand.

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Why Writing Is So Good for You

Putting your experiences into words brings form to chaos..

Posted May 15, 2014

People have long claimed that expressive writing--essays, memoirs, stories--has helped them feel better. Studies have demonstrated improvements in overall well-being for those who write out their sorrows and difficult experiences.

Underlying mechanisms are hard to pinpoint, though. It’s a challenge for empirical research to answer questions like, “Why?” or “Exactly how?” Mostly researchers can count up how often something happens, and then ask for subjective responses to questions that relate to consciousness.

From my own research among famous, successful writers, and from my own and others’ experiences of writing non-professionally (i.e., not necessarily for publication), I suggest a lot of the benefits come from writing in flow .

WHY FLOW IS SEDUCTIVE

Flow takes you out of yourself and allows you to feel part of something larger. Writing is an excellent activity for entering a flow state. You get fully engaged while doing it, you’re not thinking about rewards or an audience (at least early on), time seems to shift in importance or even stop, and you forget your everyday self in the interests of this “larger-than-life” thing you’re crafting.

Depression and anxiety tend to cause rumination, having the same dreary thoughts over and over. But when you begin writing things down, whether it’s directly about your life, as in a diary, or an attempt at an essay or story or even a novel, you get deeply involved in that task and tend to rise above the ordinary frustrations of your day.

By forming a coherent narrative out of the chaotic elements of your personal history, reported psychologists James Pennebaker and Janet D. Seagal, "the mind doesn't have to work as hard to bring structure and meaning to it."

In one of their studies, experimental and control groups of students were asked to write about an assigned topic for four consecutive days for 15 minutes each day. Those who had written about emotional topics had far fewer doctors' visits during the rest of the school year. "Having a narrative is similar to completing a job, allowing one to essentially forget the event," Pennebaker concluded.

MORE THAN AN EMPTY NEST

I found this conclusion to be quite true when I kept an “empty nest journal” beginning when my second son was getting ready to leave for college. I found relief and clarity during this emotionally challenging time by writing out my feelings. Some years later, I turned my journal into my first novel, Kylie’s Heel , a fictionalized account of a woman who loses everything.

What I did was fictionalize— catastrophize , even—my own normal upcoming loss into a worst-case scenario. An example:

Why hadn’t it occurred to me to bring a camera to his prom? I’d even unthinkingly left my phone at home. Before the divorce , I was the family recorder, catching life on light-sensitive paper, arranging bits of it into albums, gathering the overabundance in yellow Kodak envelopes and storing them in a closet. A few years later, though, poring over those pictures of my son when he was small and of myself when I was younger, I might have been scrutinizing images from an alternate universe. To say if only I had clasped it closer, held it tighter, appreciated it more: what does that mean?

Struggling with the novel's plot helped me figure out how someone could survive so much loss. By that process of writing out my anxieties to their worst possible conclusion, I liberated myself—at least partially—from those common parental fears.

2 EXAMPLES FROM CURRENT BOOKS

I’d like to share two fine examples of writing, one a memoir, the other a novel, that demonstrate how art can—and must—occasionally be created out of grief .

Falling Out of Time is a novel by the leftist Israeli David Grossman, whose son was killed several yars ago. It’a poetic litany of grief, with surreal elements, and I read it with a hard ache in my chest. Here’s an excerpt that’s excruciatingly autobiographical:

That’s how it is with me, clerko, that’s how I’m built. No getting around it. I can’t understand anything until I write it. Really understand, I mean. Veritably! What are you looking at? Again with that waif face? I’m talking about actually writing, not just regurgitating what a thousand people before me have chewed up and vomited, like you are so fond of doing, eh, keeper of the notebook? Snooping, snipping, jotting down every single fart with your precious handwriting, eh? Well then, write this, please, in big letters, giant ones: I must re-create it in the form of a story! Do you get that? It, you idiot! The thing that happened! What’s not to understand? It! The sonofabitch thing that happened to me and my boy. Yes—mix it into a story is what I need to do, have to do. And it must have plots! And imagination ! And hallucinations and freedom and dreams ! Fire! A bubbling cauldron!

And here’s a telling excerpt from My Mistake , a memoir by Daniel Menaker about his family life, the death of his brother Mike when they were both young (he blames himself), his cancer, and his many years at The New Yorker (where he wasn’t always appreciated) and Random House. His voice is often appealingly vulnerable.

And then out of desperation I wrote a story based on what had happened. And then came more writing — because much as I dislike the actual work of writing, it settles me, makes me feel as though I am actually managing myself, as nothing else does. I suppose this goes in the plus column too. But finally there’s this: Would I give back every sentence, every lesson learned, every bit of wisdom , every gram of sympathy for others, every sensitivity, every penny, every square inch of real estate, to have Mike walking three years ahead of me? Instead of adding year after unnatural year to my seniority over him? Instead of coming around the bend of the year and into the fall with the usual schoolboy’s summer’s-end sadness so uniquely sharpened? Instead of living in the shadow of an alternative unlived life? You tell me.

Copyright (c) 2014 by Susan K. Perry , author of Kylie’s Heel

Susan K. Perry, Ph.D. , is a social psychologist and author. Her current focus is on the creative aspects of rationality and atheism.

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What is academic writing and why is it important?

Dec 27, 2020 | Academic Writing , College Applications , Englist blog , TOEFL Prep | 0 comments

Academic writing has become an increasingly important part of education as parents and educators realize the value of critical thinking skills and preparing students for college. 

Still, many students, parents, and even other teachers don’t have a great grasp on this area of learning and why it is so critical.

As such, at Englist we find it is important to not only teach academic writing, but also help everyone understand why it is imperative to the development of thoughtful and capable students.

What is academic writing?

First, what is academic writing? Most students see writing as something they just have to do because a teacher says so, and it becomes a painful and time-consuming assignment. Our mission is to end this kind of thinking.

Simply put, academic writing is teaching students how to write essays. That sounds pretty simple, but there is a lot more to it than that.

Essay writing is the process of sharing complex ideas, thoughts, or opinions. Writers learn to construct a rather complicated argument or explanation by combining sentences into paragraphs and paragraphs into an essay.

Academic writing demands writers become clear in their explanations and reasoning, direct in their communication, and most importantly, able to make readers understand their topic and thesis.

Writing is a very important part of our history and lives as humans. There are several advantages that come with writing, but in this article, we have selected some of the top 10 importance of writing essays.

It may interest you to know that ever since the Greek and Roman eras, humans have been writing essays and papers. We have always been looking for ways to tell our stories, share our ideas, and even keep records by writing.

In our world today, essay writing forms a vital part of our degree programs and academic work . Some people may consider this irrelevant, but it has so many benefits that it creates which we will discuss in detail later.

However, before you can fully understand the importance of essay writing, you’ll need to know what an essay really is including its structures and categories. 

The following section gives you a brief introduction to essay writing, describes the structure of an effective essay, and offers you an interesting fact about essay writing you may have never known. 

Let’s dive right in together…

Table of Contents

Introduction to Essay Writing

Below are some things you’ll need to know about writing an essay.

What is an essay

An essay is a piece of writing about a particular subject, that is aimed at presenting the author’s point of view, sharing an idea, expressing an opinion or emotion, and communicating to others. 

It is believed that the word “essay” was derived from the French verb “essayer” which means “to try” . The word was originally known to mean “an attempt” or “a trial” in the English language.

However, the word began to acquire a new meaning when Michel de Montaigne (a French Man) described his writings as Essays. This was his way of characterizing his written work as “an attempt” to write down his thoughts. 

Classification of Essays 

Essay writing has been classified under two broad categories which are:

• Formal essays
• Informal essays 

Formal Essays:

These are also referred to as impersonal essays. They are often written in corporate settings and may require research, facts, and evidence to back them up. Some formal essays are written in the 3rd person voice or view.

Informal Essays:

Writing informal essays may not require a lot of research like formal essays. Essays like this can also be referred to as personal essays and are often written in the first person point of view. They can be subjective and conversational in nature and the author may freely express his/her opinions without necessarily providing evidence to prove them.

Structure of An Essay

To guide your essay writing, the structure of the essay sometimes called the shape of an essay is often broken down into 3 parts:

• An introduction 
• The main Body
• Conclusion 

An introduction:

This is where you present your topic, offer your reader background and provide a thesis statement if you have any. The introduction of an essay usually contains;

• Thesis statement

The Main Body: 

Writers often use the body of their essay to express more clearly and broadly the statements or ideas in their introduction. When writing an essay, you can use the body to explain core arguments, give clear analysis, and present evidence to back up your claims. It is recommended to start each paragraph of your essay body with a topic sentence.

Conclusion:

After you’ve exhausted your points and explanations in the body of your essay, you’ll need to round everything up. A conclusion helps you to do that by tying up your main points and showing clearly the conclusions you wish your readers to acquire from your essay.

What are the Benefits of Essay Writing?

Below is a list of the top 10 importance of Essay Writing:

• Makes You A Better Writer
• Improves your Communication Skills
• Acquire Research Skills
• Essay writing Improves Creativity
• Essay Writing is Useful for Professional and Employment Purposes
• Broaden Your Knowledge Base
• Essential for Academic Success
• Helps You Become More Aware of your Choices
• You make better decisions
• Think Smarter.

Thinking about the general importance of writing skills? Read these top 10 importance of writing and find out for yourself. Let’s quickly get down to the benefits of Essay Writing.

1.  Makes You A Better Writer

It is said that practice makes perfect. That statement holds true for essay writing as it does for other things too. Writing essays will help you improve your writing skills, produce better papers, and may also improve your college score.

If you write essays often, you may begin to discover new ways to write, new writing tips, tricks, and new strategies.

You become able to structure a more clear argument and write persuasively.

2. Improves your Communication Skills

As long as we live in the midst of people, we would always need to communicate our ideas, feelings, and desires to others.

Essay writing helps you to develop the ability to clearly lay out your thoughts and express them in the best possible way. It is believed that great communicators have a greater chance to get what they want and become successful.

With essay writing, you learn to structure your thoughts into words and this develops your ability to communicate better.

3. Acquire Research Skills 

Most essays will require you to conduct research inorder to find facts and evidence to defend your work. In the process of finding these facts for your essay, you begin to pick up essential research skills that will help you in other areas of your life.

Essay writing will help you know how to find accurate and trusted information from the vast amount of information on the web.

4. Essay writing Improves Creativity 

Some essay topics may cause you to stretch your mind inorder to find creative ways to deliver them. This does something to your ability to reason and come up with creative ideas.

You may begin to search for new information, a new presentation style, and other creative ways to make your essay come out well. All these activities will help you discover new aspects of your creativity you never knew you had.

5. Essay Writing is Useful for Professional and Employment Purposes

Essay writing involves a lot of information gathering, analysis, and research. These activities are also useful in professional organizations.

For example, marketers will need to provide reports, programmers will need to prepare documentation and other professionals may need to send out letters.

If you’ve already had a previous essay writing background, this may come in handy.

6. Broaden Your Knowledge Base

Writing has a way to help you see things in a more clear way. As you make research for your essays, you become enlightened on subjects you had little or no knowledge about.

You begin to see certain connections and you begin to have a better understanding of certain subjects and concepts.

Also, you may be given essay writing assignments in fields you’re not knowledgeable in.

As you carry out your research, everything begins to become clearer and you learn more about the subject than you knew before.

7. Essential for Academic Success 

In our educational institutions today, writing is one of the core aspects of everything we do.

It is important if you want to acquire good academic grades in fulfillment of your educational pursuit. Students who are aware of this employ essay writing services to help them ace their projects and/or assignments.

8. Helps You Become More Aware of your Choices.

Let’s say you had a particular opinion about a subject you were told to write an essay about. While you were gathering information, you became aware of what the subject really entailed and you began to see the cracks in your past opinion.

That’s exactly what essay writing can do for you. It can help you see more clearly why your opinion on a particular topic may have been biased or uninformed.

9. You make better decisions 

The research skills you pick up from essay writing will help you to make better decisions. You’ll learn how to use research to guide the decisions you make.

Research essays train your mind to decide upon the most credible and reasonable options thereby teaching you how to pick the better option from a list of other conflicting alternatives.

10. Think Smarter

Some people wrongly believe that essay writing should be for only people in the arts, language studies, or writing. When you begin to develop an essay with your outline, you’ll learn how to pick the best approach to your essay. You’ll naturally begin to have the tendency to think Smarter as you delve deeper into topics.

As you do this continuously, you’ll begin to see beyond surface level understanding, and you’ll start engaging in critical thinking.

Frequently Asked Questions About Essay Writing 

1. what is the most important thing when writing an essay.

Your Thesis or Argument. The main argument of your essay must be clearly written with logical facts, evidence and proof. Make a strong argument and persuade your readers with a well-written thesis.

2. What are the important parts of essay?

There are 3 major parts of an essay which includes: •The Introduction. •The Body. •The Conclusion. Using an outline before you start writing, will help you identify how to properly structure your essay within these parts.

3. What are the important uses of writing?

Writing is a vital part of our lives and history. There are several uses of writing, but some of them include: •Communication, •Keep Records, •Store information.

4. What purpose does writing serve?

Writing has so many purposes. However, there are 5 purposes that stands out. They are; 1. Persuasion. 2. Information. 3. Entertainment. 4. Explanation. 5. Record Keeping.

5. What is the purpose of essay writing?

Essay Writing can serve so many purposes. However, a major purpose of essay writing is to present an opinion, idea, or argument in response to a subject matter or question and offer evidence that persuades your readers that your opinion is correct or reasonable.

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You can acquire a lot of soft and hard skills from your essay writing projects and activities. This article has outlined just 10 importance of writing essays, but there are other benefits that we’ve not discussed.

Writing Essays may be a tedious and difficult task, but it pays off if done properly and with a goal in mind. Recently, a lot of software has also been developed to help people become better writers and make writing fun.

This article was written to help you, we hope it did. Check out other valuable recommendations and articles within the blog.

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Although it may appear at first that the people who have the most to benefit from writing are writers, managers, businessmen, journalists, or keynote speakers, that cannot be further from the truth.

Each and every one of us can take away something from developing and honing our writing skills, even if it’s just a simple practice of keeping a journal.

As human beings are social animals, we need to communicate with each other on a daily basis.

Although the majority of that interaction is carried out verbally or non-verbally , a great deal of communication requires us to write. The most obvious example of this is posts or messages on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. This also includes text messages we send each using our smartphones, or through platforms like Skype, Viber, and WhatsApp.

Of course, emails still have their place and some even still hold on to the lost art of writing letters . These are all instances where we are required to write, but what about benefits of writing just for the sake of writing? How can we make use of that?

The following list contains eight reasons why good writing skills can improve your life, and make you a well-rounded, happier individual.

1. Writing Helps Your Clear Your Mind

We've all sometimes felt the need to vent and speak our minds in order to get our point across.

Well, writing can help you do that.

Try and write down all of your thoughts, grievances, doubts, fantasies, and pretty much everything else that crosses your mind. Just write, without thinking about what lands on paper or your computer screen. It may seem like the end result is something pretty chaotic, but that’s not the point.

The point is for you to clear your mind, so that you can go about your day, working, solving problems, and just enjoying life. Without all those thoughts in the back of your head distracting you, you will find it easier to work and focus, no matter what your profession is.

2. Writing Will Help You Recover Memories

You will be surprised at how writing is able to bring back old and almost forgotten memories.

Start writing down those which you do remember. Before you know it, a certain word or a phrase you’ve put down on paper will trigger some other memory you would never have thought of otherwise. Some of those memories won’t be pleasant, but you will be able to look at them from a distance and put them perspective, and ponder how much you have learned from those experiences.

On the other hand, happy memories will put a smile on your face, and you will remember events and people you care about, driving you to get in touch with them again.

3. You Will Be Able to Stockpile Ideas

It is a good rule of thumb to always write down ideas that pop up out of nowhere because you will be less likely to forget about them that way.

You can try and keep them inside your head but, seeing as we live in a digital age, we process an insane amount of information. We are bound to forget most of them, and that includes some great and precious ideas.

However, when you write them down, you will not only save them from being forgotten, but it will be easier for you to develop them and connect them with one another. You can even come up with new ones through brainstorming.

4. Put Your Life Events into Perspective

One of the most basic examples of this is keeping a journal, but it’s not the only way of putting things into perspective.

Writing fiction will also help you analyze things and look at them from a different point of view. You will be able to draw parallels between those fictional events and situations, and those which took place for real in your life. This will help you look at them in a more objective light.

Another effective way of doing this is to start a blog. This will make you think long and hard before you write anything down since your work will read by an audience.

5. Improve Your Verbal and Written Skills

When you are writing something down, you become more careful in choosing the right words. This means your writing will be more eloquent, concise, and elegant than your actual speech.

But, if you keep at it long enough, plenty of those beautifully put together words, phrases, and sentences will begin to find their way in into your verbal communication skills . You will start to use an expanded vocabulary, which will leave a better impression of you on the person you are communicating with. Both your personal and professional lives stand to benefit from this.

6. You Will Feel like You Have Accomplished Something

You know that pleasant sense of accomplishment after building or fixing something, or winning a simple game?

You will also get that feeling once you finish writing a short story, your daily blog post, or your latest journal entry. Those who are more ambitious can take on writing a novel, or a book, which is even more satisfying and brings a greater sense of accomplishment. But, for the time being, stick to shorter forms and, who knows, you might even be able to publish some of your work down the line, or earn some money on the side thanks to your writing skills.

7. It’s a Great Mental Exercise

Keeping in shape doesn’t just apply to exercising your body regularly. You can do the same for you mind as well. Writing activates a number of different cognitive processes, and unleashes your creativity.

All of this will keep your brain sharp and active, and it can even act as a preventative measure against some mental illnesses, such as Alzheimer's or dementia. You can even join an online writing course to hone your skills and practice.

As you can see, there are plenty of ways in which you can benefit from writing on a regular basis, even if you are not a professional writer. All of these tips will lead you to become a more accomplished, eloquent, and satisfied person.

Great writing skills go a long way toward establishing you as a more complete person too. You will be able to improve your social life, and become a better professional.

Start writing today and reap the benefits.

About the Author

After a few years being a freelance teacher, Laura decided to become a freelance writer and editor instead.

She has worked many happy years as a writer, where she helps to edit the work of some of their most diligent and professional writers.

She one day hopes to own a ranch in Texas and has already started saving for the deposit.

Continue to: How Writing Can Make You a Better Person Journaling for Personal Development: Creating a Learning Journal

See also: Lifelong Learning | How to Write a Letter Writing your CV or Resume | Gender Neutral Writing

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The Lasting Value of the Personal Essay

This writing form has a value that goes beyond the college application as it nurtures self-reflection and inspires creativity.

I still remember my own personal essay that I wrote decades ago during my college admissions process. My essay focused on movies and how movies were a conduit of curiosity. It was also about the death of my father and how movies, in part, had provided a common ground for us—a connection. Although my essay, of course, was not the sole determining factor in my admission, it’s a predominant memory from that time of my life. To this day, I feel it had a persuasive effect on my admittance.

In fact, now looking back, I can’t recall my grade point average or my class rank or the final grade that my English teacher gave me on my literary analysis of Heart of Darkness. Even my exact SAT score, back then a real measure of academic aptitude, remains fuzzy to me all these years later, “shaded in wistful half-lights,” as described by Norman Maclean. I can, however, remember nearly every sentence, if not quite every word, of the personal essay I submitted to my first-choice college, which has undoubtedly, for me, over the years remained one of the most important pieces of writing I have ever produced.

The personal essay is an enduring literary genre and an art form that provides often-challenging material in English classes. In my Advanced Placement Language and Composition course, we frequently read works from an array of authors from various eras, including Michel de Montaigne, Virginia Woolf, E. B. White, Joan Didion, André Aciman, Brian Doyle, Dr. Oliver Sacks. These writers function as exemplars for my students to both analyze and model not only for their rhetorical value but also for their stylistic technique and philosophical ruminations.

Power of Personalization

One of the most predominant rhetorical strategies we recognize in these texts is personalization. And so Woolf’s “The Death of the Moth” has impacted my students throughout the years with its frank depiction of psychological tension, addressing philosophical themes on an existential level that never fail to capture their attention—so much so, that a group of students painted a mural on the wall outside my classroom, a visual interpretation of Woolf’s essay that they titled Memento Mori .

The candor and intimacy of Dr. Oliver Sacks’s depiction of his final days before his death from cancer have engendered numerous touching and insightful comments from my students during our Socratic seminars analyzing his almost unendurably moving personal essay, “My Periodic Table.” 

Students respond viscerally, it seems, to the personal. Sadly, many students have been touched by some of the same tragic subject matter that we analyze through these texts. During our seminars and journal assignments, my students have revealed their own personal connections to some of the personal essays we read in class, connecting, I think, to the shared experiences that we have all had throughout human history. 

Our students often find themselves facing a vortex of standardized tests, AP exams, and benchmarks throughout the school year, which often emphasize the formulaic. The active process of personal choice on topic and subject seems lost. So often my students ask me questions when writing an essay, seeking a particular answer, as if literary analysis were calculus. Missing is the creativity, the exploration of writing free from academic constraints like rubrics and scoring guides. Writer-editor Steve Moyer asserts in  Edsitement , “Nuanced thought... requires a greater gestation period than the nearly instant gratification made possible on Twitter.” I have witnessed this impatience from my own students.

There can be a restlessness in the writing process, a hesitancy for revision or drafting. Personal essays require self-reflection and a free-flowing freedom from rigid form that my students embrace in a way that they don’t with an argument or research-based essay. On more than one occasion during parent-teacher conferences, I have had parents tell me that their child used to love creative writing, but somewhere along the way, the rigor of school seemed to have killed it.

Personal essays, then, restore that creativity, since they encourage a freedom from form. Students can experiment with style and figurative language and syntax in ways that the traditional academic five-paragraph essay often thwarts.

Personal essays also allow teachers to really get to know our students, too. The inherent intimacy of a personal essay, the connection between the writer and the reader—in this case, a student and a teacher—provides insight into the concerns, the dreams, the emotions of our students in addition to allowing us to assess how they exercise their compositional skills, including imagery, syntax, diction, and figurative language. Here, then, a teacher has the best of both worlds. We’re able to both connect to our students on an emotional level and evaluate their learning on an academic level. Personal essays also serve as an emotional outlet. 

There seems to be a common assumption that personal essays for high school students serve only the college application process, so the process begins during their senior year. Personal writing, however, should occur throughout a student’s academic experience. The narrative essays that most elementary school students encounter evolve into the more ruminative, philosophical, and reflective personal writing they will encounter during their senior year from many of Common App essay prompts.

Many teachers implement journal writing in their classrooms that provides a firm foundation for the type of personal writing that the college admissions essay requires. In my own class of juniors, the last assignment we complete for the year is a personal essay. My intent is to help prepare them for the college essay they will write, hopefully, during the summer so that they will have a solid draft before the application process begins. 

Teaching our students this strategy in their own writing benefits them in their futures, not only for the imminent college application process but also for job interviews. For example, I was mentoring a student, a senior who had no desire to go to college, about the job interview process he would soon face after graduation. We rehearsed and practiced the types of questions he might encounter from a future employer. I encouraged him to remember the personal details of his experience, personalizing everything in a way that would allow him to ideally stand out as a job candidate.

Through personal essay writing, my overarching, grand ambition is to instill in my students ultimately a love of reflection, looking back on their experience, reminiscing on significant memories that linger, carefully considering the seemingly little moments that, only upon reflection, have an enormous impact on us.

The Psychological Benefits of Writing

When you attempt to envision a writer, I imagine many of you see a quirky recluse, hunched over a desk in some cabin, crumpled paper strewn about as they obsessively work on the next great American novel.

But writing is so much more. Prose is thought put to page , which makes all of us writers, even if we don’t have the chops to tangle with Faulkner. In most cases, writing is most useful as a tool for thinking, expression , and creativity; cabin-dwelling novelists be darned.

Let’s look at some of the benefits of making writing a regular habit .

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Writing and happiness

Much of the research on writing and happiness deals with “expressive writing,” or jotting down what you think and how you feel. Even blogging “undoubtedly affords similar benefits” to private expressive writing in terms of therapeutic value.

Expressive writing has also been linked to improved mood, well-being, and reduced stress levels for those who do it regularly, says Adam Grant :

Research by Laura King shows that writing about achieving future goals and dreams can make people happier and healthier... And Jane Dutton and I found that when people doing stressful fundraising jobs kept a journal for a few days about how their work made a difference, they increased their hourly effort by 29% over the next two weeks.

Writing and communicating clearly

Laziness with words creates difficulty in describing feelings, sharing experiences, and communicating with others. Being able to flesh out thoughts in your mind only to have them come stumbling out when you speak is supremely frustrating. Fortunately, regular writing seems to offer some reprieve.

In both emotional intelligence and in hard sciences like mathematics, writing has been shown to help people communicate highly complex ideas more effectively.

Writing helps eliminate “it sounded good in my head” by forcing your hand; brains forgive fuzzy abstractions, prose does not.

Writing and handling hard times

In one study that followed recently fired engineers, the researchers found that those engineers who consistently engaged with expressive writing were able to find another job faster. Says Adam Grant:

The engineers who wrote down their thoughts and feelings about losing their jobs reported feeling less anger and hostility toward their former employer. They also reported drinking less. Eight months later, less than 19% of the engineers in the control groups were reemployed full-time, compared with more than 52% of the engineers in the expressive writing group.

According to an older study, writing about traumatic events actually made the participants more depressed, until about 6 months later, when the emotional benefits started to stick.

One participant noted, “Although I have not talked with anyone about what I wrote, I was finally able to deal with it, work through the pain instead of trying to block it out. Now it doesn’t hurt to think about it.”

It seems that timing is critical for expressive writing to have an impact. Forcing the process to happen may only worsen things, but if writing is an activity that is engaged in naturally, the benefits seem clear .

Writing and gratitude

As the authors of one study noted, subjects who reflected on the good things in their life once a week by writing them down were more positive and motivated about their current situations and their futures.

The catch was, when they wrote about them every day , the benefits were minimal. This makes sense; any activity can feel disingenuous and just plain boring if done too often. It seems like the key is to reflect and write about gratitude regularly, but not begrudgingly often.

Writing and your “mental tabs”

Have you ever had too many Internet tabs open at once? When your brain has too many tabs open at once, it’s often the result of trying to mentally juggle too many thoughts at the same time.

Writing gives form to your ideas and gets them out of your head, freeing up bandwidth and preventing you from crashing your browser like a late night downward spiral on Wikipedia. Getting important ideas down alleviates the stress of losing your thoughts to time or an overcrowded mind.

I’ve personally never felt inclined to not work on something just because I “archived” the idea with some notes or an outline—in fact, I’m more likely to continue developing that idea since it has already been started.

If all else fails, remember this joke from Mitch Hedberg: “I sit at my hotel at night, I think of something that’s funny, then I go get a pen and I write it down. Or if the pen’s too far away, I have to convince myself that what I thought of ain’t funny.”

Writing and learning

Information often sticks better when it’s learned as though it needs to be taught or re-written in your own words. This concept of having a “writer’s ear” never fully clicked with me until I started writing regularly.

There’s a certain discipline required to create interesting written work that demands the individual be receptive and focused on finding new sources of information, inspiration, and insight. I’ve read books, listened to podcasts/radio, and watched videos I would normally have put off in order to learn something new so that I might write about later.

Simply being a curator of good ideas encourages deeper thinking, research, and “heading down the rabbit hole” in order to find unique takes on topics that matter to you. Committing to creating a volume of work also allows you to tackle big ideas more effectively.

Writing around a certain topic for some time will allow you to build off of older thoughts, utilizing what you’ve already written to develop ideas on a grander scale — in our industry, for example, more than a couple people who regularly write support emails have turned a paragraph from one of their customer conversations into an essay, which led to a series of articles, which led to a book.

Writing as leadership at scale

Though the world may now be drowning under the personal brand deluge, there are sincerely interesting opportunities that an “anyone can publish” world brings about.

The ability to leave an impact at scale through your words alone is an astounding concept. There’s a bit of a creative shock the first time someone emails you, thanking you for the work you’ve put out and sharing how it has helped or influenced them.

Without a doubt, the positive feedback for this “leadership at scale” leads to gratitude and further motivation for the writer.

Even in the face of criticism, writers learn to build thick skins like few others. Criticism, even unwarranted, is the breakfast of champions.

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Gregory ciotti.

Greg is a writer, marketing strategist and alum of Help Scout. Connect with him on Twitter and LinkedIn .

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Why Is Writing Important? (22 Reasons)

Have you ever stopped to think about how much writing impacts your life? From jotting down a shopping list to sending a text message, writing is everywhere, shaping how we interact with the world and each other.

It’s fundamental, yet we often take for granted just how powerful a tool it can be. Good writing not only helps us share information but also transforms the way we think, learn, and connect.

In the pages that follow, let’s explore the myriad ways writing touches every corner of our existence. Can writing truly change your life, or is it just another skill to master? Stick around, and you just might discover that writing holds more power than you ever imagined.

Table of Contents

Writing Enhances Clarity in Communication

Effective communication is all about getting your point across with clarity and precision. Writing is the chisel that shapes rough ideas into sharp narratives. 

Think about the times you’ve written an email or a report. Choosing your words carefully, you have to consider how the reader will interpret them. This process alone can transform a muddled thought into a clear message.

• It leads to a better understanding of personal and professional relationships.
• Well-crafted writing avoids misunderstandings that can occur with spoken words.
• Smooth communication builds trust and respect between parties.

By fostering clarity, writing becomes the bridge connecting intention with understanding, ensuring everyone is on the same page, quite literally.

Writing Aids in Learning and Retention of Information

There’s a reason why note-taking is encouraged in classrooms worldwide. Writing while learning actively engages the brain, prompting it to analyze and reframe information. This dual action cements knowledge more firmly than passive listening.

Remember those scribbled margins in your textbooks? Here’s what they’re actually doing:

• They’re boosting your recall by creating unique connections in your brain.
• Summarizing complex ideas in your own words locks in learning.
• Writing by hand has been linked to improved memory retention.

When learners write about what they’re studying, they create a personal connection with the information, which is invaluable for retention. It also encourages them to think critically, ask questions, and explore the material on a deeper level. 

This technique is employed in various settings, from classrooms to professional workshops, demonstrating the significant role writing plays in learning and education.

Writing Can Influence Social Change

Writing isn’t just about putting words on a page; it’s a powerful tool for advocacy and reform. The written word has sparked revolutions and nurtured movements that have reshaped nations. 

Here’s a look at how writing changes the world:

• It disseminates ideas that challenge the status quo, encouraging people to think and act.
• Influential works, from Thomas Paine’s “ Common Sense ” to Rachel Carson’s “ Silent Spring , ” demonstrate the impact of writing on public opinion and policy.

This form of communication can sneak past barriers that might restrict spoken words. Written appeals to reason, emotion, and shared values can cross geographical and cultural boundaries to unite people under a common cause. 

Through blogs, social media, articles, and books, famed and anonymous writers stir hearts, evoke dialogue, and drive action. So, while a pen may seem mightier, it can indeed be more powerful than a sword when it comes to championing rights, justice, and democracy.

Writing Preserves Stories and Cultures

Cultures are the tapestries of human existence, woven with stories, traditions, and languages. Writing is the crucial thread that holds these tapestries together across time. 

It’s almost magical how script locked away in dusty tomes or engraved on ancient ruins breathes life into civilizations long gone.

• Folktales:  Maintaining folklore through written records ensures generations to come know their ancestral stories.
• Language:  Documenting dialects and idiomatic expressions keeps languages alive.
• Traditions:  From recipes to rituals, writing preserves the unique practices of communities.

Through writing, individuals not only chronicle their current way of life but also ensure that future generations have a window into their ancestral past. 

Writing Sharpens Critical Thinking Skills

To craft a solid piece of writing, one must weigh evidence, discern patterns, and anticipate counterarguments—all activities that hone your ability to think deeply and critically. This is the rigorous mental exercise that strengthens your reasoning muscles. 

When you write an essay, for example, you must present a clear argument supported by facts. This process demands a level of analysis that goes beyond surface-level understanding.

Engaging with diverse perspectives is also part of being a thoughtful writer. By reading the works of others and writing critiques or responses, you immerse yourself in a dialogic process, exchanging ideas that refine your own thoughts and positions.

This dialogue with different viewpoints is integral to broadening your own intellectual horizons.

Writing Connects People Across Distances

Imagine you’re writing a letter to a friend on the other side of the world or a text message to a loved one just down the street. In both cases, the words you pen bridge the physical gap between you and them. 

Writing is a unique tool that connects us irrespective of location; it’s a heart-to-heart dialogue that can cross continents and oceans.

There’s something magical about opening an email from a friend abroad or stumbling upon a blog post that changes your perspective. It feels like they’re right there with you, sharing a moment in time. 

Even in our tech-savvy world where video calls are just a click away, the written word holds a special kind of intimacy — it can be saved, reread, and treasured in a way that spoken words cannot. 

Writing Improves Focus and Discipline

Engaging in the act of writing requires a level of concentration that few other activities can match. You’re pulling together thoughts, weaving words into sentences, and sentences into paragraphs—all of which demands a disciplined mind. 

Maintaining that focus over time helps to develop your ability to concentrate on tasks, both big and small.

For anyone who has set out to write a blog post or a book, the process often involves setting up a routine and sticking to it, come inspiration or writer’s block. This habitual commitment translates directly to improved self-regulation and time management skills as you become better at setting and achieving goals. 

Writing Assists in Conflict Resolution

By expressing ourselves through writing, we can clearly convey our thoughts and feelings, which is crucial in conflict resolution. Let’s break this down:

Clarifying Perspectives:

• Expression of emotions : Writing allows individuals to articulate their feelings  without  the heat of verbal confrontation.
• Rational argumentation : Parties involved can lay out their points logically, minimizing the potential for emotional escalation.

Understanding Parties’ Positions:  Written communication gives each party time to consider the other’s viewpoint and respond thoughtfully rather than reactively.

Documenting Agreements:  Written summaries of conflict resolutions serve as tangible records that can prevent future misunderstandings and foster long-term peacekeeping.

Whether it’s in personal relationships or international diplomacy, the pen can guide us toward finding common ground.

Writing Documents History and Important Information

Writing is the cornerstone of preserving human achievements and learning. Every innovation, from the wheel to the smartphone, has its development outlined in written form. 

Legal documents, with their precise language, dictate how societies function, maintaining order and recording the framework of our civilizations. 

But beyond the structural, writing offers intimacy with the past; it’s personal. Reading the musings of a 12th-century philosopher or the letters of a World War II soldier, we bridge the gap between now and then, understanding events and the people behind them.

The act of documenting through writing, as such, serves a dual purpose: 

• It establishes the record that shapes the structure and identity of society.
• It creates a pathway to revisit and learn from the experiences of those who came before us. 

Without writing, history would be like the wind, felt briefly but invisible to the eyes of the future.

Writing Refines Language Skills

Engaging regularly in writing is one of the most effective methods for improving language proficiency. It’s an active process that involves:

• Vocabulary expansion : Delving into writing naturally exposes you to new words and phrases.
• Grammar and syntax mastery : With practice, your sentence structure improves as you find more efficient ways to convey your message.
• Style and tone variation : Writing allows you to experiment with different voices and styles suitable for various audiences and purposes.

The act of writing also provides an opportunity for feedback. Be it through a teacher’s corrections, an editor’s revisions, or comments from peers, each piece of feedback is a stepping stone toward language mastery. 

Whether you’re a native speaker or learning a new language, writing turns the abstract rules of grammar and style into concrete examples you create yourself, promoting a deeper internalization of the language.

Writing Organizes Thoughts and Ideas

Have you ever had a “ light bulb ” moment only to find it slipping away before you could fully grasp it? Writing is the tool we use to catch those ethereal thoughts and pin them down. 

It’s a mental sorting exercise, transforming a jumble of ideas into an ordered sequence. This linear format is tremendously powerful, allowing us to navigate complex concepts and construct detailed plans. 

Moreover, this ordering process is iterative; as we draft and redraft, our organized thoughts become refined arguments, compelling stories, or actionable strategies. Writing doesn’t just capture our initial musings; it shapes them into their most precise form.

Writing Helps Build Persuasive Arguments

When it comes to persuasion, writing is your secret weapon. It’s not just about having an idea but about  effectively  convincing others to get on board with that idea.

Through writing, you can carefully craft your argument step by step. 

• You introduce your idea (the claim)
• Back it up with solid evidence
• Explain why this evidence matters (the explanation)

You’ve got the time to research your points thoroughly and present them in the most compelling way possible.

Consider the persuasive essays of high school, the debated op-eds in newspapers, or the carefully constructed cover letters accompanying job applications. Each is an exercise in persuasion, aiming to convert the reader from a state of indecision to one of agreement. 

Writing Fosters Creativity

Imagine the vast landscape of a blank page. Now, see it transforming as words dance across it, crafting worlds, characters, and plots. This is the realm where writing and creativity intertwine.

• Unleashing the imagination : Writing gives life to the imagination, allowing the invisible to sculpt worlds as vivid as our reality.
• Exploring possibilities : It allows us to ask “ what if ” and “ why not, ” pushing the boundaries of conventional thinking.
• Expressive freedom : There are no limits; genres, forms, and styles become playgrounds for creative experimentation.

Whenever writers pick up a pen or type on a keyboard, they engage in a creative act. Whether it’s composing poetry, developing a story, or finding a creative solution to a problem, writing is a discovery process. 

The more you write, the more you tap into the depths of your imagination, stretching its capabilities. The act of writing itself can be a muse, sparking insights and ideas that might never surface in the regular rhythm of daily life.

Writing Can be Therapeutic

Engaging in the practice of writing has unexpected healing properties. It’s a canvas for the soul, where one can paint feelings, fears, and hopes in word form. As you articulate your inner narrative, you experience a sense of personal discovery and growth.

In therapy sessions,  writing  is often used as a tool to help individuals confront traumatic events or deal with psychological stress. The act of committing thoughts to paper can sometimes reveal patterns or solutions that were not evident before. 

Many people find that regular journaling makes their emotional burdens lighter and their minds clearer. This simple, quiet act of writing can be akin to a personal therapy session, fostering emotional health and well-being.

Writing is a Form of Entertainment

Whether getting lost in a fantasy novel or chuckling over a clever blog post, writing captivates and entertains our minds. It’s an escape hatch from reality, allowing readers to dive into different worlds, times, and experiences.

The Spectrum of Entertainment:

• Novels and Short Stories : Craft vast adventures or snapshot moments.
• Plays and Scripts : Bring characters and conflicts to life on stage and screen.
• Poetry and Lyrics : Play with rhythm, rhyme, and emotions.

Writing is not only an important aspect of the entertainment industry, but it also serves as a personal amusement. From witty social media status updates to engaging articles on your favorite subjects, writing can elicit joy, suspense, laughter, and a range of emotions that enrich our daily lives.

Writing Aids in Personal Reflection and Introspection

When we put pen to paper, we engage in a solitary journey, navigating the corridors of our psyche. In a way, writing serves as the mirror through which we scrutinize our lives, dissecting our actions, thoughts, and feelings. 

Writing is introspective by nature; it requires us to slow down, reflect on our experiences, and examine them in the light of our deepest truths and beliefs. It’s a dialogue with the self that can lead to profound insights and a better understanding of personal motivations and desires. 

Whether chronicling daily events in a journal or composing letters that may never be sent, writing helps distill the essence of our experiences and offers a lens through which we can understand and evolve our sense of self.

Writing Empowers Self-Expression

Embracing the power of self-expression is to embrace the essence of what it means to be human. 

Through writing, individuals can craft their unique voices, assert their opinions, and leave an indelible mark on the tapestry of human experience. It’s an act of courage and an act of personal truth.

• In novels, a character’s journey may mirror our own, echoing the complexities of real-life choices.
• Blogs and articles serve as platforms for sharing insights and sparking discussions on topics that matter deeply to us.
• Poetry breaks the chains of traditional narrative, allowing emotions to flow freely in a rhythmic and expressive dance.

Writing Keeps the Brain Active and Engaged

Just like how a runner sprints to keep muscles in peak condition, a writer pens words to exercise the brain. This mental workout boosts cognitive function and keeps the gears of the mind well-oiled. 

Consider the following:

• Puzzling over the right word choices sharpens decision-making abilities.
• Constructing complex sentences tests and improves memory.
• Articulating abstract thoughts challenges the intellect and sparks neural connections.

Whether drafting a quick note or composing a lengthy manuscript, writing engages multiple areas of the brain, from language centers to memory storage. This continuous engagement is vital to maintaining a healthy and active mind throughout life, warding off the mental rust that can come with age or inactivity. 

Writing Helps in Career Progression

Writing is a ladder to career advancement. Here’s how it serves as a boost to professional growth:

• Resume Crafting:  Your resume is your story, a narrative of your achievements. A well-written one can open the doors to new opportunities.
• Effective Communication:  Clear, concise writing in emails and reports proves your professionalism and attention to detail, garnering respect from colleagues and superiors.
• Thought Leadership:  Share your industry insights through articles or social media. It raises your profile and can position you as an expert in your field.

Proficiency in writing sets you apart in the job market and workplace. It’s a skill that shines a spotlight on your capabilities, helps you build influential networks, and can be a deciding factor in promotions and leadership roles.

Writing Secures Transactions and Agreements with Contracts

A contract is the backbone of a binding agreement, etched with words that spell out the expectations and obligations of all parties involved. 

Here’s how writing plays a crucial role:

• Foundation : A written contract lays the groundwork, detailing the terms clearly to avoid ambiguity.
• Protection : It serves as a legal safeguard, protecting interests and asserting rights.
• Accountability : The contract ensures all parties are accountable, making commitments enforceable.

In the complex network of transactions and agreements that keep our world moving, writing stands guard against misunderstandings and disputes. Be it for buying a house, starting a new job, or entering into business partnerships, contracts captured in writing are the sentinels of our socio-economic landscape.

Writing is Integral for Marketing and Branding

In the realm of marketing and branding, words are currency. They can inform, persuade, and evoke emotions that drive consumer behavior. The language used in marketing materials can significantly impact how a brand is perceived and engaged with.

• A captivating slogan can resonate with audiences, lodging itself in the communal consciousness.
• Well-crafted copy defines a brand’s voice, from professional and authoritative to casual and friendly, shaping the brand’s public image and appeal.
• Storytelling through content marketing forges a connection with customers, much like a novel draws in its readers, binding them to the characters—in this case, the brand and its offerings.

Through the strategic use of writing, a brand communicates its identity, values, and promises to the customer, establishing a narrative that differentiates it from competitors and builds brand loyalty.

Writing Encourages Lifelong Learning and Curiosity

The process of writing, though often seen as an output of learning, is equally powerful as a driver of continued education. When we write, we are not merely recording what we know; we are often learning anew.

Writing propels us to keep questioning, exploring, and absorbing the world. It injects curiosity into every subject touched by the tip of the pen. It opens the door to untapped reservoirs of knowledge, inviting us to step through and discover.

Can everyone benefit from writing, even if they’re not naturally good at it?

Yes, everyone can benefit from writing. Like any skill, writing improves with practice. It’s not just for professional writers or those with a natural talent. Writing is a fundamental skill that serves numerous practical purposes in everyone’s life.

How does writing differ from other forms of communication?

Writing allows for  thoughtful  expression where ideas can be refined and structured before sharing, providing a level of clarity and permanence that other forms of communication (like speaking) may not offer. It also transcends time and space, allowing for asynchronous communication.

How can someone improve their writing skills?

Improving writing skills can involve:

– Regular practice. – Reading widely. – Seeking feedback on your work. – Studying grammar and style. – Engaging in writing courses or workshops.

The key is to write consistently and be open to learning and refining your craft.

Can writing be a collaborative process? How?

Writing can be highly collaborative, with individuals working together to brainstorm, edit, and revise content. This is common in professional environments, academic settings, and even in creative writing, where authors may work with editors, publishers, and peer writers.

Is it important to maintain a personal style in writing?

While it’s crucial to adapt your writing to different contexts, maintaining a personal voice or style can help to differentiate and personalize your writing. It gives readers a sense of who you are and can make your writing more memorable and engaging.

Final Thoughts

It’s clear that it isn’t just about words on a page. It’s a tool for learning, a bridge for communication, and a foundation for building societies.

Whether carving out a career path or penning thoughts in a personal diary, writing is a companion that nurtures growth, kindles imaginations, and captures the full spectrum of human experience.

So the next time you pick up a pen, type out an email, or update your journal, remember the profound impact those seemingly simple acts of writing can have.

After all, each word you write weaves a thread into the vast tapestry of history, culture, and personal identity. And who knows? In sharing your story, you might just inspire someone else to start writing theirs.

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What are the Benefits of Writing an Essay?

Students may be asked to write many different types of essays during their academic careers, including argumentative, persuasive, comparative, and narrative essays. Argumentative essays require students to take a position on a topic and defend that position with evidence.

Persuasive essays are similar to argumentative essays, but they typically focus on convincing the reader to take a particular course of action, such as adopting a new policy or investing in a certain product. Comparative essays ask students to compare and contrast two or more ideas, while narrative essays tell a story from the author’s perspective. No matter what type of essay they are writing, students should always aim to produce well-written, thoughtful pieces that offer fresh insights into a given topic.

What are 3 Benefits of Essay Writing for Students?

Let’s face it, writing academic papers can be daunting. Not only do you have to come up with an original and well-argued opinion on a topic of your choice, but you also have to ensure that your work is free of grammatical errors, flows well, and persuades the reader to see things from your perspective.

Despite the hurdles, writing essays can benefit students in multiple ways. Here are just three of the many benefits of essay writing for students:

     I.         Essays hone students’ ability to formulate and defend their own arguments

One of the most important skills that students learn by writing essays is how to formulate and defend their own arguments. To write a good essay, students need to be able to express their own ideas clearly and persuasively.

This requires them to think critically about their claims and the evidence they are using to support those claims. By writing essays, students learn to develop and communicate their own ideas more effectively.

   II.         Essays help students learn how to research and use evidence effectively

To write a good essay, students need to be able to find and use relevant evidence. This involves locating appropriate sources of information and knowing how to critically evaluate those sources and incorporate them into their own arguments. By writing essays, students learn how to carry out effective research and use evidence to support their own claims.

 III.         Essays allow students to practice their writing skills

Writing essays provides an opportunity for students to practice their writing skills. By regularly producing well-written essays, students can improve their overall writing ability and become more confident in their own abilities.

In addition, essay writing can also be a good way for students to receive feedback on their writing from teachers or other experts. Overall, there are many benefits of essay writing for students.

By writing essays, students can learn how to formulate and defend their own arguments, use evidence effectively, and improve their overall writing skills. In addition, essay writing can also provide an opportunity for students to receive feedback on their work from teachers or other experts.

How can I make my Essay Easier?

Now that you understand how helpful writing essays is to students, you may be wondering how to make your essay easier, especially if you’re not a natural writer. The thought of writing an essay can be daunting, but there are some simple things you can do to make the process easier.

·      Choose a topic that you’re interested in

One of the best ways to make your essay easier is by choosing a topic you’re interested in. When you’re interested in a topic, it’s easier to come up with ideas and arguments that you’re passionate about. This will make writing your essay much simpler because you won’t have to force yourself to develop ideas or arguments.

·      Do your research

Another way to make your essay easier is to do your research. When you know more about your topic, it’s easier to come up with ideas and arguments that are well-informed and supported by evidence. In addition, doing your research will also help you avoid making common mistakes that can make your essay harder to write.

·      Find a professional essay writing service to help you

If you’re struggling to write your essay, one of the best things you can do is find professional college essay writers to help you. When looking for essay writers, be sure to choose the best essay writing service that can provide you with all the help you need to write a successful essay, including editing, proofreading, and formatting.

This will take a lot of the pressure off of you and allow you to focus on producing a high-quality essay. The best part about getting essay writing help is that you’re also working with expert writers who can help you to improve your essay-writing skills over time.

Writing an essay really is beneficial in several ways and really isn’t as difficult as it may seem. By following the tips above, you can make the process much easier and produce a high-quality essay that you can be proud of. So don’t wait any longer; get started on your essay today!

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The Benefits of Essay Writing for Academic Success

Honing the ability to craft stellar essays is indispensable for thriving in college. Yet there are myriad psychological barriers to writing.

Facing up that blank sheet of paper requires unrelenting perseverance. Including endless hours of work until you’re satisfied with your draft.

There is no magic button or phrase like, do my paper for me , that will get it done instantly.

Check out our comprehensive guide to dig into the major benefits of essay writing for academic success.

Then you can begin your gentle jog towards crafting one-of-a-kind academic papers!

Nurturing Creativity 

The moment you collect your thoughts and embark on your writing journey, your creative mind starts to experience an inner springtime, with ever-new ideas sprouting up.

It’s important to snatch this moment and give it your undivided attention. Ideas will pop up and vanish.

Unless you master the ability to seize them when they appear – you’ll lose them all.

Keep WB Yeats’s advice to writers in mind at all times: “ Do not hurry, do not rest “. Constant practice is essential for harnessing creativity.

If you’re putting in tons of work yet still find that your writing would benefit from professional help, worry no more.

There are a plethora of expert essay writing firms out there ready to lend you a hand.

Leveraging the expertise of research papers help to get a grip on the fundamentals of solid academic writing.

Professionals can help you understand whether your essays have the necessary intellectual grip and emotional appeal.

Honing Research Skills 

One of the major benefits of essay writing for academic success is your enhanced ability to conduct thorough research.

Then, use it to your fullest advantage.

You stand virtually no chance of coming up with a decent academic paper if you don’t delve deep into the subject.

Only good knowledge of the subject lets your imagination float unhindered, granting your narrative a fresh and juicy feel.  

What’s more, the benefits of fostering solid research skills transcend the confines of a classroom. Whatever you try to accomplish in life, fact-finding and thorough examination will always do the trick.

Practicing Self-Confidence

Among the many psychological benefits of writing is its ability to instill self-confidence. Embracing self-assured thinking is essential for producing top-notch academic papers.

Uncertainty will always be reflected in your writing.

But to learn the trick of confidence, you should feel the difference between arrogance and self-trust. Arrogance stifles your progress by suffocating your motivation to improve.

Self-confidence stems from your belief in your abilities while always leaving room for further development.

Elements that go into the writing process, including research, total concentration, and perseverance, help you build faith in your abilities.

That way, you cultivate just the right amount of self-confidence to produce essays that inspire.

Learning to Think Critically 

Academic essays are all about demonstrating your critical thinking skills. If you fail to build awareness and control your thoughts, your essay writing process will yield no results.

When you ponder the topics surrounding your essay, try to get a grip on your thought processes to devise robust thinking strategies.

They can become your secret tools for producing pristine academic papers every time.

Are You Ready to Write?

If you’re prone to procrastinating when it comes to constantly honing your writing skills, think twice. Apart from helping you excel at college, regular essay writing can help you foster skills.

Ones are indispensable for everyday life.

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Self-reliance, concentration, research skills, and critical thinking are only some of these. We hope our suggestions have inspired you to start gathering more knowledge to set forth on your great writing adventure!

Can you think of any more benefits of essay writing?

Joanne Elliot is a student counselor and blogger. She has helped many students overcome the mental stress associated with college studies. Joanne spends her free time writing informative blogs to assist young people in cultivating academic skills and seizing the right opportunities around them.

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5 Reasons Your Students Should Write Every Day

Daily in-class writing can help your students discover the writer within.

Do students write every day in your classroom? 

If not, you’re not alone. Research on writing frequency suggests that just a quarter of middle and high school students write for at least 30 minutes a day, a minimum standard set by learning experts.

During my sixteen years as an ELA teacher, there were times my students wrote enough and times they did not. But, unsurprisingly, when I had my students writing every day, my students gained skills and confidence more quickly and I had greater insight into their lives.   

Why is writing important for students?

Studies suggest that teaching students how to write well is one of the best things educators can do to ensure academic engagement and future success. Of course, some students may struggle.

I remember one student—we’ll call her Imani—who would sit in class and stare at her blank computer screen as the minutes ticked by. She sighed, she groaned, she started writing and hit the delete key almost immediately. She seemed to feel like everything was riding on crafting the perfect paragraph. 

Now, I think about how she would have responded if I had added short, low-stakes writing sessions to our daily schedule. If she came to class knowing she would write every day, would she feel less pressure to “get it right?” Probably. Would she start to see that the only way to become a better writer was to write frequently? Likely. Would writing begin to feel more attainable and perhaps even a little rewarding? Definitely!   

From building confidence to fostering metacognition, the benefits of daily writing are worth the time invested. Here are the top five research-backed reasons why writing every day is important for students.

1. Writing is good for mental health and capacity.

Anyone who writes in a journal every day can talk about the emotional benefits of having a place to clarify their thoughts and work through their emotions. And it turns out that science confirms these benefits. There are more than 200 studies that show the positive effect of writing on mental health .

Not only can writing help students understand their emotions, it can also help their brains run more efficiently. A study funded by the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health showed that anxiety takes up a tremendous amount of brainpower. However, when daily writing soothes students’ worries, cognitive resources are freed up to work on other tasks.

Jason Moser, one of the study's authors, explains, “Students who wrote about their worries were able to offload these worries and run more like a brand new Prius. Whereas the students who didn’t offload their worries ran more like a ’74 Impala—guzzling more brain gas to achieve the same outcomes.”

2. Writing strengthens executive functions.

Executive functions are the mental processes that enable us to plan, pay attention, and juggle multiple tasks successfully. Given how many executive function skills are used in the writing process, it's no wonder that many children who struggle with executive function find writing to be daunting. But this skill overlap means that strengthening writing and executive function skills simultaneously is an effective way to learn.   

When teaching writing to students who struggle with executive function, you’ll want to give detailed instructions and models for every step of the writing process, along with frequent check-ins and practice time. If you just tell students to “write a paragraph,” they might not know where to begin and stall out quickly. But if you review steps, help them make a plan, and teach them to assess their work with rubrics, they’ll improve their writing and practice crucial executive function skills simultaneously.  

3. Writing helps educators assess student learning.

In a piece about teaching literacy in her math classroom , former teacher Sarah Galasso shares how she was surprised when a high-performing student wrote that she was confused about classwork. Equipped with this intel, Galasso adjusted her feedback to boost this student’s confidence and help her see that she understood much more than she thought she did. 

Reading student writing gives teachers valuable insight into how students are progressing in class and also who they are as people—what their likes, dislikes, concerns, and dreams are. The more we know, the more we can invite students to share all parts of themselves, which builds an asset-based classroom . 

Lastly, reading student writing regularly lets you monitor how your students are doing with their social-emotional learning . You’ll gain insight into any emotional road bumps they’re encountering and also be able to identify students who may need more support.  

4. Writing cultivates creativity.

Creativity, as psychologists define it, is the ability to come up with original and useful ideas. And contrary to popular opinion, creativity can be taught . Combining seemingly unrelated ideas, working backward to solve a problem, and challenging assumptions, are three ways, among many, we can ignite creativity.

Another way to build creativity is through daily writing . Writing encourages students to use their imaginations, make connections, view a problem in various ways, strategize solutions, and tell stories. Writing also lets students exercise agency and feel joy at creating something new.  

5. Writing encourages reflection and self-awareness. 

Writing requires students to reflect , and the metacognitive skill of thinking about thinking is an invaluable learning tool. When students can reflect upon what they know, don't know, and would like to learn more about, they’ll be able to consolidate information, ask the right questions, self-direct when acquiring new knowledge, and take ownership over their learning.      

Writing every day can also increase students’ self-awareness by helping them learn from their experiences. Research suggests that becoming more self-aware can increase our confidence and encourage us to be more accepting of others . Confident students tend to fare better academically and socially, and strong classroom communities rely on students embracing one another’s differences.  

All Students Can Be Writers

Think back to Imani, my student who didn’t know how to start writing. Now imagine her walking into her classroom knowing that she’s there to write. She sits down, takes out her computer, and gets to it.  

Her writing isn’t perfect, of course, but it’s improving. She’s learning that process is more important than perfection. She’s learning how to clarify her thinking and express herself effectively. Most importantly, her writing confidence has soared, and every day, she’s building skills that will improve her future.

Emily Anderson, PhD

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Before joining Carnegie Learning’s marketing team in 2021, Emily Anderson spent 16 years teaching middle school, high school, and college English in classrooms throughout Virginia, Pennsylvania, California, and Minnesota. During these years, Emily developed a passion for designing exciting, relatable curricula and developing transformative teaching strategies. She holds master's degrees in English and Women’s Studies and a doctorate in American literature and lives for those classroom moments when students learn something that will forever change them. She loves helping amazing teachers achieve more of these moments in their classrooms.

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• April 14, 2022

"When I devoted adequate time to in-class writing, my students gained skills and confidence more quickly and I had greater insight into their lives."

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What are the Benefits of Writing Essays?

The practice of writing essays will be an integral part of your student life. You will be asked to write persuasive, argumentative, comparative, and narrative pieces during this phase. And, in some cases, you might have to write a college application essay too.

But have you ever thought about how this will benefit you?

Well, jotting down essays can definitely help you improve your writing skill and make you an excellent thinker. However, the benefits of the same go far beyond that.

In this article, we’ve talked about some of the advantages of writing essays or practicing them for your greater good. So, without any further ado, let’s get started with it right away.

Advantages of Writing Essays

Let’s keep reading to learn more.

1: Formulating Your Own Argument and Defending It.

When you are writing an essay, you will be prompted to present your own idea and develop it in some manner. And this, in turn, will help you come up with your own theories and explain them perfectly. Besides, you will become much more theoretically persuasive as well.

Furthermore, as you are developing your arguments, it might also be possible for you to boost your critical thinking skill. So, basically, the more you write, the better it’ll become for you to support your ideas with evidence and communicate them.

2: Practicing and Improving Your Writing Skill.

In order to write a grade-acing essay, you will need to improve your vocabulary and grammar sense quite a lot. So, it might prompt you to read and learn more about these things and boost your overall understanding of the language even more.

Also, as you keep writing and rechecking what you have written, you’ll find lots of errors and issues with the piece. Editing them will make you better at understanding your fundamental or basic problems. It, in turn, might prompt you to improve yourself even more.

3: Developing an Excellent Research-Oriented Mindset.

After all, you can’t afford to choose the wrong paper as your reference. So, you might have to go through thousands of studies before you can start writing. It, in turn, can increase the level of patience, research skills (obviously), and focus of the student.

4: Increasing Your Knowledge.

When you are conducting research on something, you’ll always find and learn something new and fresh. It might be related to whatever you are writing or not.

Now, if you keep writing essays in different niches, it’ll be even easier for you to garner a lot of constructive knowledge. It might also be beneficial for your studies and overall student life.

5: Can be Beneficial for Writing Your CV.

Writing an essay can improve your overall writing skill, especially from a technical point of view. So it will be easier for you to express more about yourself in a proper manner while working on a CV. And the better you write it, the higher your chance of getting a job.

Here are some tips on how you can improve your CV writing skills -

• Follow the right CV format, and don’t make it look unprofessional.
• Write everything about yourself in a clear and concise manner.
• The personal statement should be compelling and attentive to details.
• The job descriptions should be quantified eloquently.
• Work on the ‘your skills’ section in a persuasive manner.

And doing all these will be much easier if you write essays. After all, while you are writing it, you will have to do the same thing. You must format it correctly, jot down the introduction in a concise manner, and research in an attentive manner too. 

Furthermore, the quantification is to be done through stats and facts. Finally, you will have to persuade the reader to believe you through correct reasoning and supportive thoughts.

How Do You Write an Essay?

Writing an essay, especially if you’re a novice, might be difficult for you. So in order to make it easier for you, we will add some tips here regarding the same. So, let’s get started.

• Make it short and crisp. Don’t write more than 70 words if you have to finish it or the write-up within 500 words.
• Keep the section as vague as you can. Inform the readers about what they will find in the essay, but don’t give away anything.
• You will need to cover most of the word count of your essay in this section. So it would be best if you could break it down into different paragraphs.
• The body of your article should have all the necessary information to cover the claims you have made in it. It can be done through statistics and facts.
• The conclusion of the essay will be all about wrapping everything up within one single paragraph. It should not contain more than 50 words. So, make it worthwhile.

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Should I Use ChatGPT to Write My Essays?

Everything high school and college students need to know about using — and not using — ChatGPT for writing essays.

Jessica A. Kent

ChatGPT is one of the most buzzworthy technologies today.

In addition to other generative artificial intelligence (AI) models, it is expected to change the world. In academia, students and professors are preparing for the ways that ChatGPT will shape education, and especially how it will impact a fundamental element of any course: the academic essay.

Students can use ChatGPT to generate full essays based on a few simple prompts. But can AI actually produce high quality work, or is the technology just not there yet to deliver on its promise? Students may also be asking themselves if they should use AI to write their essays for them and what they might be losing out on if they did.

AI is here to stay, and it can either be a help or a hindrance depending on how you use it. Read on to become better informed about what ChatGPT can and can’t do, how to use it responsibly to support your academic assignments, and the benefits of writing your own essays.

What is Generative AI?

Artificial intelligence isn’t a twenty-first century invention. Beginning in the 1950s, data scientists started programming computers to solve problems and understand spoken language. AI’s capabilities grew as computer speeds increased and today we use AI for data analysis, finding patterns, and providing insights on the data it collects.

But why the sudden popularity in recent applications like ChatGPT? This new generation of AI goes further than just data analysis. Instead, generative AI creates new content. It does this by analyzing large amounts of data — GPT-3 was trained on 45 terabytes of data, or a quarter of the Library of Congress — and then generating new content based on the patterns it sees in the original data.

It’s like the predictive text feature on your phone; as you start typing a new message, predictive text makes suggestions of what should come next based on data from past conversations. Similarly, ChatGPT creates new text based on past data. With the right prompts, ChatGPT can write marketing content, code, business forecasts, and even entire academic essays on any subject within seconds.

But is generative AI as revolutionary as people think it is, or is it lacking in real intelligence?

The Drawbacks of Generative AI

It seems simple. You’ve been assigned an essay to write for class. You go to ChatGPT and ask it to write a five-paragraph academic essay on the topic you’ve been assigned. You wait a few seconds and it generates the essay for you!

But ChatGPT is still in its early stages of development, and that essay is likely not as accurate or well-written as you’d expect it to be. Be aware of the drawbacks of having ChatGPT complete your assignments.

It’s not intelligence, it’s statistics

One of the misconceptions about AI is that it has a degree of human intelligence. However, its intelligence is actually statistical analysis, as it can only generate “original” content based on the patterns it sees in already existing data and work.

It “hallucinates”

Generative AI models often provide false information — so much so that there’s a term for it: “AI hallucination.” OpenAI even has a warning on its home screen , saying that “ChatGPT may produce inaccurate information about people, places, or facts.” This may be due to gaps in its data, or because it lacks the ability to verify what it’s generating. 

It doesn’t do research  

If you ask ChatGPT to find and cite sources for you, it will do so, but they could be inaccurate or even made up.

This is because AI doesn’t know how to look for relevant research that can be applied to your thesis. Instead, it generates content based on past content, so if a number of papers cite certain sources, it will generate new content that sounds like it’s a credible source — except it likely may not be.

There are data privacy concerns

When you input your data into a public generative AI model like ChatGPT, where does that data go and who has access to it? 

Prompting ChatGPT with original research should be a cause for concern — especially if you’re inputting study participants’ personal information into the third-party, public application. 

JPMorgan has restricted use of ChatGPT due to privacy concerns, Italy temporarily blocked ChatGPT in March 2023 after a data breach, and Security Intelligence advises that “if [a user’s] notes include sensitive data … it enters the chatbot library. The user no longer has control over the information.”

It is important to be aware of these issues and take steps to ensure that you’re using the technology responsibly and ethically. 

It skirts the plagiarism issue

AI creates content by drawing on a large library of information that’s already been created, but is it plagiarizing? Could there be instances where ChatGPT “borrows” from previous work and places it into your work without citing it? Schools and universities today are wrestling with this question of what’s plagiarism and what’s not when it comes to AI-generated work.

To demonstrate this, one Elon University professor gave his class an assignment: Ask ChatGPT to write an essay for you, and then grade it yourself. 

“Many students expressed shock and dismay upon learning the AI could fabricate bogus information,” he writes, adding that he expected some essays to contain errors, but all of them did. 

His students were disappointed that “major tech companies had pushed out AI technology without ensuring that the general population understands its drawbacks” and were concerned about how many embraced such a flawed tool.

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How to Use AI as a Tool to Support Your Work

As more students are discovering, generative AI models like ChatGPT just aren’t as advanced or intelligent as they may believe. While AI may be a poor option for writing your essay, it can be a great tool to support your work.

Generate ideas for essays

Have ChatGPT help you come up with ideas for essays. For example, input specific prompts, such as, “Please give me five ideas for essays I can write on topics related to WWII,” or “Please give me five ideas for essays I can write comparing characters in twentieth century novels.” Then, use what it provides as a starting point for your original research.

Generate outlines

You can also use ChatGPT to help you create an outline for an essay. Ask it, “Can you create an outline for a five paragraph essay based on the following topic” and it will create an outline with an introduction, body paragraphs, conclusion, and a suggested thesis statement. Then, you can expand upon the outline with your own research and original thought.

Generate titles for your essays

Titles should draw a reader into your essay, yet they’re often hard to get right. Have ChatGPT help you by prompting it with, “Can you suggest five titles that would be good for a college essay about [topic]?”

The Benefits of Writing Your Essays Yourself

Asking a robot to write your essays for you may seem like an easy way to get ahead in your studies or save some time on assignments. But, outsourcing your work to ChatGPT can negatively impact not just your grades, but your ability to communicate and think critically as well. It’s always the best approach to write your essays yourself.

Create your own ideas

Writing an essay yourself means that you’re developing your own thoughts, opinions, and questions about the subject matter, then testing, proving, and defending those thoughts. 

When you complete school and start your career, projects aren’t simply about getting a good grade or checking a box, but can instead affect the company you’re working for — or even impact society. Being able to think for yourself is necessary to create change and not just cross work off your to-do list.

Building a foundation of original thinking and ideas now will help you carve your unique career path in the future.

Develop your critical thinking and analysis skills

In order to test or examine your opinions or questions about a subject matter, you need to analyze a problem or text, and then use your critical thinking skills to determine the argument you want to make to support your thesis. Critical thinking and analysis skills aren’t just necessary in school — they’re skills you’ll apply throughout your career and your life.

Improve your research skills

Writing your own essays will train you in how to conduct research, including where to find sources, how to determine if they’re credible, and their relevance in supporting or refuting your argument. Knowing how to do research is another key skill required throughout a wide variety of professional fields.

Learn to be a great communicator

Writing an essay involves communicating an idea clearly to your audience, structuring an argument that a reader can follow, and making a conclusion that challenges them to think differently about a subject. Effective and clear communication is necessary in every industry.

Be impacted by what you’re learning about : 

Engaging with the topic, conducting your own research, and developing original arguments allows you to really learn about a subject you may not have encountered before. Maybe a simple essay assignment around a work of literature, historical time period, or scientific study will spark a passion that can lead you to a new major or career.

Resources to Improve Your Essay Writing Skills

While there are many rewards to writing your essays yourself, the act of writing an essay can still be challenging, and the process may come easier for some students than others. But essay writing is a skill that you can hone, and students at Harvard Summer School have access to a number of on-campus and online resources to assist them.

Students can start with the Harvard Summer School Writing Center , where writing tutors can offer you help and guidance on any writing assignment in one-on-one meetings. Tutors can help you strengthen your argument, clarify your ideas, improve the essay’s structure, and lead you through revisions. 

The Harvard libraries are a great place to conduct your research, and its librarians can help you define your essay topic, plan and execute a research strategy, and locate sources. 

Finally, review the “ The Harvard Guide to Using Sources ,” which can guide you on what to cite in your essay and how to do it. Be sure to review the “Tips For Avoiding Plagiarism” on the “ Resources to Support Academic Integrity ” webpage as well to help ensure your success.

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The Future of AI in the Classroom

ChatGPT and other generative AI models are here to stay, so it’s worthwhile to learn how you can leverage the technology responsibly and wisely so that it can be a tool to support your academic pursuits. However, nothing can replace the experience and achievement gained from communicating your own ideas and research in your own academic essays.

About the Author

Jessica A. Kent is a freelance writer based in Boston, Mass. and a Harvard Extension School alum. Her digital marketing content has been featured on Fast Company, Forbes, Nasdaq, and other industry websites; her essays and short stories have been featured in North American Review, Emerson Review, Writer’s Bone, and others.

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The Impact of Professional Scholarship Essay Writing Services on Academic Success

I t’s hard to overestimate the usefulness of writing services for someone who needs a good essay for a scholarship application. At the same time, there are some concerns about the probable negative impact of writing services on academic success. Let’s consider both the potential negative and positive impact of a scholarship essay writing service to decide what’s stronger.

One of the most widespread concerns about the impact of essay writing services is the ethical side of use. Evidently, it is improper if people will provide someone’s work as their own. Even though such concern cannot be called groundless, it’s a matter of choice. Writing service is a tool, and it’s only the customer's choice how to use it. A person can buy a knife to cut fruits and vegetables or to take someone's life. This is not about the tool but about the ethics and decisions of the particular person who uses the tool.  

Another concern is related to the dependency. When people overuse writing services and outsource their own tasks to other experts, it rather decreases their own skills that ought to be developed with the assignments. It’s once again about human conscience and ethics. In this context, it can be useful to compare writing services with coffee. Sometimes, this drink can be very useful to help you wake up or not fall asleep for longer. However, with excessive use, it can be harmful to health and be addictive. And, if you are regularly using coffee to wake yourself up or to stay awake, you probably have to reconsider your time management.

One more concern is about the money. Writing services obviously don’t provide their help for free. Hence, the frequent use of it can cause a financial burden for people who use such services. Thinking this way, one can assume that any type of purchase can cause a financial burden. Most writing services insist on price transparency and the absence of any hidden additional increase in the price. One can see the price before placing an order and deciding whether this money will harm the budget.

As you can see, although the concerns about writing services aren’t baseless, they’re more about the weakness of human nature than about the negative impact of writing services themselves. People who can act unethically will find their way with or without writing services. And if a person has trouble managing money it will be evident from the different aspects of life, not only the use of writing services. You can be careful using writing services, but not more careful than with anything else in life. 

Except for the concerns considered above, writing services can also positively impact academic success when used properly. A person who needs to write a scholarship essay often faces the problem of procrastination and blank page syndrome. In such a case, help from a writing service can be incredibly useful to overcome the problems. A person can use the paper from the writing service as an example to follow or, in contrast, decide that everything must be written differently. Most importantly, one will start working on the scholarship essay instead of waiting for inspiration or being lost in anxiety. 

• The positive impact on mental health comes from the previous advantage. Applying for the scholarship is a stressful process. A person is concerned about all the papers that must be gathered and forms to be filled out in the proper way, about the future if the scholarship will be obtained, and about the development of the events if not. Writing services that provide personalized examples of scholarship essays can help reduce stress and anxiety and, hence, have at least a small positive impact on mental health. 
• Expert guidance can be crucial for a person who needs a scholarship. Yes, you can find free examples of scholarship essays on the web, but you might not be sure which is most suitable for your particular case. Writing services have professionals who often write scholarship essays and know their specifics. In addition, a personalized example is the most useful one to understand what and how you can write to succeed. 
• Time management is the last but not the least point in this list. Writing services have short deadlines of just a few hours, which allows a person to get a ready example on the same day it was ordered. This saves time that a person might spend reading and understanding the nuances of the scholarship essay. Instead of that, one can take this time for other no less essential papers or activities related to getting a scholarship.

Final words

As one can see, scholarship essay writing services can potentially negatively and positively impact academic success. Such services can be a powerful tool to save time, avoid stress, and get a well-written personalized example of a scholarship essay. However, as well as in the case of any tool, it must be used wisely and ethically.