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Can Reading Improve Your Writing Skills?

Reading can broaden your perspective about places, people and their customs, providing a wider base of references for a broader audience.
A pretty brunette girl in a blue shirt is working at the table in office. She is writing in notebook with a smile

Reading can provide you with a way to improve your writing skills. Perhaps you’re a freelance writer sitting in Mexico, and you have to write some articles to encourage tourists to visit the country. You’re sitting with writer’s block and looking for something to give your imagination a boost. Reading about the area could do just this by increasing your knowledge and giving you some fresh ideas. Here are some other ways reading could improve your writing skills. 

It expands your knowledge of the world

Reading can broaden your perspective about places, the people who live there and their customs. This means that you have a wider base of references and can write for a broader audience. 

Your cultural awareness and empathy for people who are different from you will be reflected in what you write. For example, your articles about Mexico will come to life if you understand more about the Mexican people and their culture. 

It improves your vocabulary 

When you read, you are exposed to unfamiliar words. Looking them up can help you to expand your vocabulary.

  • Don’t try to read books with vocabulary that is too advanced for you, or you could quickly become frustrated. 
  • Examine a word within its context to see if you can pick up the meaning, and then look it up in the dictionary to check whether you’re correct. This will help you to remember it better.
  • Your vocabulary won’t improve if you don’t read on a regular basis. 

Helps you to use grammar correctly

The more you read, the more you understand how to use grammar correctly. It starts to reinforce the correct grammar in your mind. You will realize what makes sentences easier to understand, such as the correct use of punctuation. The use of commas, for example, can alter the meaning of a sentence completely. You will learn what prepositions go where and start to use them more intuitively. When your tenses are incorrect, they will seem jarring to you. 

If you read out loud, the combination of seeing and saying will give you a better sense of how a proper sentence should ‘sound.’ 

You should still use grammar books to understand the basics, but you can build on what you learn through reading and listening. Learning from books is better than trying to learn grammar from stand-alone grammar exercises.

If you’re studying and earning money from freelance writing at the same time, reaching out to writers at https://www.assignmenthelper.com.au can be helpful when you need to write assignments. Reading examples of assignments written by professional writers can help to improve your grammar skills and much more. 

Exercises your brain

Reading exercises your brain because you have to understand the characters and the plot. Thinking critically helps you to detect underlying themes, symbolism and why characters perform certain actions. This can help your brain to come up with more creative options when you write yourself. You will learn how to intrigue readers and make them want to keep reading. You can also read books on topics like plot or character development to help you. 

When you read non-fiction, you may find yourself thinking about the opinions or facts presented by the writer and whether you think like the writer or have a different opinion. Thinking critically while you read can help you to exercise more critical thinking in your own writing. 

Helps you to structure your writing

Reading improves your knowledge of how to structure writing. Whether you are a freelance writer writing a blog, a novelist or a student writing an academic research paper, reading works in a similar format helps you to grasp the format for that particular style of writing. If you’re a student in the UK, you can reach out to professional writers for dissertation help UK. You will receive an example of academic writing that can help you to structure your own writing.

Developing a structure helps in many ways:

  1. It saves you time when you write.
  2. It ensures you include all the necessary information and nothing more. 
  3. It helps to improve the flow of your writing. 

Allows you to explore different writing styles

Every writer has a distinct way of writing. Exploring a variety of writing styles across different genres can help you to develop your own writing style. You need to pay attention to the stylistic choices writers make. When you understand more about different writing styles, you start to see how the choice of words affects the mood and tone of your writing. 

Conclusion

If you are a writer, you may have started writing because of your love for reading. Reading improves your vocabulary and grammar and exercises your brain. The act of reading can also help you to structure your writing and explore different writing styles. This can help you to develop your own writing style.