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Strengths and Weaknesses in Writing

Sarah Oakley

Table of Contents

5 writing strengths you need to have, 4 writing weaknesses to overcome, how prowritingaid can help you become a better writer, conclusion on writing strengths and weaknesses.

Even the best writers have strengths and weaknesses in writing. Being aware of your strengths and weaknesses is vital if you want to be a good writer.

If you develop your writing skills, you’ll be able to ensure all your writing is of high quality. This applies to creative writing, academic writing, and business writing. 

In this article, we’ll explore five strengths you need and four weaknesses to work on. You’ll also learn how ProWritingAid can help you become a better writer.

A writing strength is a characteristic of great writing and it gives your reader the impression you know exactly what you’re doing. You can learn and develop writing skills so you don’t need to worry about being naturally gifted.

You can build your writing strengths before you write so your first draft has solid foundations, or you can gain them over time as you write. Don’t exhaust yourself trying to make the first draft perfect; it’ll need editing later on.

We’ve picked five strengths we think are the most important when writing any document. These skills are imperative for those who want a writing career.

Strength 1: A Rich Vocabulary

One of the best things you can do as a writer is to develop the number of words you know. Therefore, you’ll have a diverse word choice to pick from when you’re writing.

You can achieve this strength through reading. Read everything you can get your hands on. It’s not enough to read within your chosen genre, business area, or subject area.

By learning new things and opening your mind to other writing categories, you’ll develop a vivid imagination, and you’ll have an excellent vocabulary to work with.

Learning new words and concepts can also help you reduce writer’s block, which is a bonus strength that will help you achieve your goal of finishing writing projects more often.

It’s said that only 3% of novel writers actually finish writing their novel. Arming yourself with a rich vocabulary will help you become one of those 3%.

If you don’t have time for reading as widely, or you’re not sure you’ll be able to remember so many words, some writing apps have built-in thesaurus features you can use. 

Strength 2: Use of Literary Devices

There are many literary devices writers can use to keep their readers engaged. You might be familiar with a few of them, but if you develop your knowledge of all of them, you’ll create variety in your writing by having more to choose from.

We can’t go over every single literary device you could use in this article. However, we have picked three important ones you can use to strengthen your writing straight away.

Foreshadowing is the technique of revealing details and clues for your reader to give them an idea of what is coming. You can use this in fiction writing to create suspense, excitement, or apprehension. In business and academic writing, you can mention something briefly that you will go into detail about later.

Metaphors and similes are ways to describe things as though they are something else or compared to something else. They are great devices to use in poetry and fiction writing. You can engage your reader with metaphors and similes by making their mind work harder to imagine the things you’re describing.

The opposite of using metaphors to describe something figuratively is using concrete imagery in your descriptions. This is where the “show, don’t tell” rule comes into play. You need to show your readers what you’re writing about through sensory details.

Strength 3: Varying Sentence Lengths

Sentence lengths are important as they help the flow of your writing and contribute to its pacing. Long sentences take longer to read but can include a lot of information. Shorter sentences can have more impact.

If you want to give the reader a sense of urgency in the pacing of your writing, use shorter, snappier sentences. They can be as short as one word. 

Be careful when writing short sentences for pacing. You don’t want to write an entire scene in short sentences because your reader might rush through without picking up any details.

Longer sentences can comprise several clauses and even feature additional information in brackets or between em dashes. They take a while to read, so do your reader a favor and remember to add punctuation for pauses. 

Strength 4: Target Reader Awareness

When you know who you are writing for and what they expect, you can focus on achieving and exceeding those expectations. This works for creative, business, and academic writing. The ability to tailor your content to the intended audience is a mark of a great writer.

If you’re working on a creative writing project, such as a novel, you need to be aware of the basic requirements of a novel and any specific elements of your chosen genre. This could include story length, number of characters, and the amount of exposition.

For business writing, such as sales emails and internal company documents, it’s important to use the correct professional tone and vocabulary for your intended reader. You need to ensure your writing is clear and doesn’t use too much business jargon that could make your reader lose interest.

When writing an academic essay or thesis, your reader is likely to be an examiner or a peer in your academic field, so they should understand the subject you’re writing about. This means you can use more technical language and statistics to back up your points. You’ll also need to use formal language.

Strength 5: A Strong Writing Voice

Your writing voice makes anything you write sound uniquely yours. So it’s important to work on achieving a strong, authoritative voice to make readers pay attention to what you’re writing about.

Developing your writing voice is something that takes time and a lot of practice. Most writers start off by emulating other writers to learn how to write things effectively. Once you know how to write well, you can start developing your own way of doing it.

You should adhere to the objective elements of good writing, such as grammar and spelling, to avoid making mistakes. You might even have to follow style guides for business or academic writing. However, this doesn’t mean you can’t break stylistic or optional writing rules, such as using the Oxford comma, to develop your personal writing style.

When you’re writing with confidence, the reader will hear it. You’ll use phrases and details only experts and enthusiasts would know. Your writing will sound natural, like you’re talking to your reader directly. A strong writing voice is one of the most engaging parts of writing.

Producing great writing is tough, and there are several weaknesses you’ll need to overcome if you want to create amazing pieces of writing. Luckily, most weaknesses only require practice and some studying to resolve them.

I’ve highlighted the four most common weaknesses writers should work on.

Weakness 1: Your Writing Lacks Substance

If you are trying to convince your readers you know what you’re talking about, you need to include details that will give them the right impression.

For a fiction writer, it’s not enough to just add extra details to your descriptions. You need to create unique characters and worlds your reader will want to invest their time in. Even genre fiction readers want to see a new spin on tried and tested plot structures.

You can always improve business and academic writing with some facts and statistics. If you’ve got research findings, add them where appropriate.

In essay writing, don’t use vague statements or general ideas. Your reader will believe your points if you can prove there’s weight to what you’re writing. Make strong points and back them up with evidence. Don’t forget to check your references and citations.

Weakness 2: Poor Grammar, Spelling, and Punctuation

A sure-fire way to lose a reader’s attention is poor grammar, misspelled words, and punctuation that skews the meaning of your sentence. Mistakes make the reader focus on the quality of the writing rather than what you are writing about.

There are many books and online courses available for improving your knowledge of grammar, spelling, and punctuation. If you’re uncertain about a rule, you can simply Google it to find out more. Writing style guides are also great places to find grammar rules.

Alternatively, you can use an editing software to tighten up your writing after you’ve finished your first draft. ProWritingAid is an editing software that includes helpful tips and information about the rules you need to brush up on. You’ll learn by doing if you edit your writing with ProWritingAid.

Never make another grammar mistake

ProWritingAid's AI-powered spelling and grammar checker will help you sound professional every time.

Weakness 3: Disorganized Writing

There are structures and templates for literally any piece of writing these days. So there’s no excuse for writing that meanders from one point to another with no apparent connection between each one. Organized writing is a must for all writers.

Before you write anything, you need to plan what you’re going to write. This plan doesn’t need to be very detailed, but it needs to have a logical flow from one point to the next. 

For academic writers, you’ll need to include transition words to join points and ideas together. Connecting your points with transition words will keep your reader engaged.

Weakness 4: Lack of Focus on Writing Projects

One of the biggest weaknesses writers face is a lack of focus. If you allow distractions to overwhelm you when you’re trying to write, it will affect your writing.

Writers need to create a suitable environment that will encourage creativity. This is different for each person, but most writers agree that a quiet room with a desk and a comfy chair are the minimum requirements.

Another factor to consider is whether you’re getting enough sleep. Tired writers don’t make amazing literature. First drafts might be safe to complete when you’re sleepy, but editing is something you should do when you’re alert and able to check your work for imperfections.

As I mentioned earlier, ProWritingAid is a piece of editing software that will coach you through your strengths and weaknesses as you make edits to your writing. One of the best things about ProWritingAid is that you can use it at any stage of your writing process.

When you use a ProWritingAid integration, you can check for grammatical errors as you type with the Realtime checker. If you hover your cursor over an underlined word or phrase, you’ll see a pop-up that will tell you what improvement needs to be made, and it’ll give you an option to apply a pre-generated improvement.

The Realtime checker gives you suggestions to improve your grammar, spelling, punctuation, readability, and passive voice. If you want to edit your writing further, you can run any of the 20+ reports that will explore specific things, such as your average sentence length and the use of sensory details.

While there are many strengths that great writers possess, the five strengths and four weaknesses we’ve highlighted in this article are some of the most important ones to focus your efforts on to begin with.

Remember, weaknesses will undermine your hard work to become a better writer. You’ll need to make sure you’re not letting yourself down by making the mistakes we’ve mentioned above.

ProWritingAid is here to help you with strengths and weaknesses in writing so you can ensure your own writing is perfect every time. Though it won’t tell you how much sleep to get or how to rearrange your writing environment. That’s all down to you.

If you want to become a skilled writer, give ProWritingAid a try today.

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Strengths and Weaknesses in Writing

As a writer, I always strive to be better—and in some categories, the best. I believe that understanding my writing strengths and weaknesses helps me improve my writing skills and become a master of this art.

If one doesn’t understand their strengths and weaknesses in writing, it means they can’t genuinely edit their work and cannot pinpoint areas that need improvement and those that are their strengths.

Constant self-evaluation is the passe-partout of any practice or line of work, but to accurately evaluate yourself you have to know what you’re looking for.

Every writer has strengths and weaknesses. For example, you might have a rich vocabulary—which you efficiently use—or showcase good usage of literary devices. Those two would be called strengths in your writing.

You might also have weaknesses in your writing such as lack of coherence, long-winded sentences, and organization.

Let us delve further into writing strengths and weaknesses and understand how you can use your strengths and overcome your weaknesses!

8 Must-Have Strengths for a Writer

It is also important to know and have some particular strengths as a writer to be more than an ordinary writer.

Here are some of those essential strengths:

Focus is essential in almost everything you do. Without focus, you could have the best skill set and still produce average work dues to errors and complacency.

Every writer wants to stay focused, but it’s not easy. You have to teach yourself to stay focused, whether it involves conditioning your body or tricking your mind.

Do whatever is necessary and within healthy limits. When you start writing and reading routinely, your body and mind start responding to them as the normal order of your day.

Enough sleep and a cup of coffee also help you maintain focus during your writing sessions .

And, get rid of distractions! Put down your phone, turn off your Wi-Fi, and get away from your Tele.

2. A Rich, Diverse Vocabulary

We are not talking about having a rich vocabulary only, but also using the words expeditiously.

This diverse vocabulary should make you write pieces that are not readable and make your readers slave through their reading.

So, you should always make sure that you choose (from this excellent vocabulary and diverse word choice) the right and unique choice of words that would look appealing to your readers.

You have to keep learning new words and the correct usage of those words.

3. A Burning Passion for Reading

I hear a lot of writers—self-published writers to be specific—say that they don’t like reading. For them, writing is a natural talent that doesn’t need to be nourished by reading.

One thing they are oblivious of is that without reading, they can’t understand what they are doing wrong, what they’re doing right, and other things that made other writers successful.

These types of writers put themselves in a “box.”

By reading other people’s works, you get to see writing from different perspectives and you can analyze your writing, a vantage point that helps you perfect your writing skills.

You don’t even have to buy these reading resources because they’re gazillions of blogs, eBooks, novels, and others online.

4. Organized Writing that Follows a Logical Flow

If whatever you’re writing doesn’t flow and therefore isn’t coherent, it is nothing but utter rubbish!

Your writing needs to show a naturally logical progression of thought and must be easy to read for the intended audience. If the progression doesn’t make sense to your reader, then who are you writing for?

Your thoughts should be linked within and between paragraphs. The use of transitional words facilitates this purpose. Words such as “however,” “also,” “yet,” and “although,” among others help you show these transitions.

You should aim at making it easy for your readers to navigate and read through your content.

Organized writing is an essential strength for a writer. The way you present your ideas in sentences and paragraphs impacts the readability and navigability of your content.

Make sure your sentences are short and your paragraphs just meaty enough for the ideas presented in them—and avoid run-on sentences.

Your content needs to have enough signposts and breaks. Be efficient with headings and subheadings, and have so many if the information keeps changing from paragraph to paragraph to make it easy for your readers to find the right information in your content.

5. Creativity

For professional writers, creativity is of the greatest essence. It is even more indispensable for fiction writers.

Our goal as writers is not to bore our readers to death. We always have to think out of the box to craft pieces that will win the hearts of the readers and make them want more of our content.

A good and wonderworking—and sometimes libertine—imagination is necessary to craft unique, stirring pieces.

Sometimes, you have to let your imagination wander off and come back with crazy and wild ideas. If you’re a fiction writer, let your imagination help you create a unique world, with unique characters, using your own nomenclature!

Remember, there’s no single rule on what kind of imagination is bad or good in creative writing.

There are various ways of increasing one’s creativity, but I have discovered that I’m more creative when I take time to appreciate other pieces of art before I start writing. Before I write I listen to some music, read poetry, or just look at a painting.

It’s not for everyone, but it works for me!

Your writing should be as clear as a summer day, as lucid as you can make it.

This element goes hand in hand with the organized writing I discussed in strength number 4, your writing should be clear enough for your readers to grasp and appreciate the ideas in your content quickly.

For blogs, newspaper articles, and magazine pieces, writing chunky paragraphs is—for lack of a word—taboo. You should always be conservative with the size of your paragraph and be straightforward with your explanations.

Just make your writing simple but comprehensible.

7. A Unique Writing Style

One thing all successful writers have in common is a unique style. For example, when you read anything by Dr. Seuss, you understand that his style involved the use of mirthful new words. The best writers write using a distinguished voice or style.

You have to discover your writing style—and for many, it just happens naturally and in some cases, it’s the readers or critics that notice the uniqueness of the writer.

8. Understanding Your Audience

We write because it’s our passion, but if we think about it, that is rarely the sole reason for writing and publishing our work.

We want our audience to love our content or appreciate the message in it. So, it’s all about our interests, but also the needs of our audience.

If you want to make your audience happy, you have to know what they like first. Dr. Seuss understood what kids want to read and what characters would work well with a young audience. If you’re writing on a tech-related topic, tech experts and geeks like; likewise, if you’re about MLS, know what soccer fans like.

Armed with that knowledge, you can craft pieces that strike a chord with your target audience, leading to the success of those pieces.

Weaknesses in Writing and Ways to Overcome Them

1. lack of substance.

You might be a yeasty writer with much-needed experience, but if your writing lacks substance, it’s bound to run into negative reviews, and hence it is going to be less impactful!

This is especially crucial for nonfiction content, if your writing straggles and wanders all over the place, your content will be shallow.

For your content to have depth, you have to concentrate on one particular argument at a time.

And, to give your argument more depth, give supporting points and sprinkle some stats here and there.

How do you deal with the lack of substance in your writing?

Here are some tips:

• Focus on the depth of your arguments rather than the length of your article (you could have a cherry-sized paragraph that is more insightful than a chunky paragraph).
• Use literary devices to make your arguments more perspicuous.
• Use stats, case studies, or research findings to further exemplify your key arguments (use infographics where necessary).
• Your content should answer questions relevant to the topic.
• Offer tips to readers.

2. Your Writing Is Too Draggy for Your Readers

Among the 8 strengths that I explained in the previous section was understanding your audience.

If you don’t understand your audience or ignore them when writing, you end up communicating with nobody.

It’s like you’re speaking to yourself, in a big hall!

As said in the previous section, we write to touch our audience in some way; whether we want them to laugh, inspire them, inform them, or educate them.

It is a terrible idea to think that you write for yourself! If that’s the case, why don’t you just hang your content on your wall?

Here are some tips for polishing draggy content:

• Understand who you’re writing for and write for them. It doesn’t matter who (it could be you, your imaginary friends, anybody!).
• Write to solve the audience’s problems. Your writing should be a solution to your reader’s pain, personal struggles, and it should also improve their lives in some way.

3. Lack of Rhythm

Ignore the importance of rhythm at your peril. In truth, writing cannot entertain without rhythm, especially creative writing.

Just like in music, rhythm steers writing and acts as a guide for the reader.

Readers can feel your writing’s rhythm and that alone can be stimulating (that is if your writing has rhythm).

If your content lacks rhythm the pace seems invariable, it neither speeds up nor slows down.

The content also seems to lack a lot of natural pauses.

This is how you can improve it:

• While paying attention to context, mix up your sentence lengths; a long one here, a short there.
• Use transition words to maneuver the passage from sentence to sentence and paragraph to paragraph.

4. Chaotic Flow

Imagine listening to a 5-year-old talk about all the wonderful things she experienced during the day: school, her cousin’s weird laughter, the dog’s thievery.

Unloading all that without any logical arrangement of information. None, at all!

I’d have said that that’s how your readers feel, but they are not listening to an adorable 5-year-old, are they?

They’re looking at a piece of writing—written by a supposedly mature individual—that’s full of hiccups and abrupt endings.

Your writing needs to be structured to unload information step by step. Your readers need to know that from A, they go to B. They need to know this is because of that, and this and that are related.

Your content has to answer your readers’ questions, give tips the reader would care about, and have contextual solutions.

Here are a few tips on improving flow in your writing:

• Go through your main points and ascertain whether they feel logical. If they aren’t, re-organize them in a logical order or start all over again.
• Look at the questions your content is answering and For every section, write down which question the content answers (or summarize in one bullet point)
• When editing , slowly survey the content for inconsistencies. There are little details you could miss if you read fast.

How to Turn Your Writing Weaknesses into Strengths

Nobody is perfect. We all have weaknesses. But, some of these writing weaknesses can be turned into strengths.

As a writer, how can you improve your writing?

• Ask for help . You can strengthen your writing skills on your own (no doubt about it), but it’s a lot less tedious when you reach out to other writers to help identify your weak areas and offer other insights.
• Read . Not only will you get an education from books and publications, but you’ll also find inspiration.
• Persevere . Perseverance can help you deal with problems such as writer’s block. It is also perseverance that will see you through periods during which you’re suffering from imposter syndrome.

Final Words on Strengths and Weaknesses in Writing

To be a better writer, you’ve got to know which areas to strengthen and which weaknesses to overcome.

 You’ll—in abundance—focus, perseverance, creativity, and a lot of humility. It will be laborious work but worth every joule expended and every second used.

You have got to believe in yourself as a writer, but don’t let your confidence blind you—there will always be something that your writing is missing.

Recommended Reading...

How to get over writers block: 30 ways to unleashing your creative potential, 9 effective ways to overcome your fear of writing.

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Strengths in Writing: Weaknesses and Strengths of a Good Writer

Unlocking your innate strengths as a writer can elevate you from mediocrity to renowned authorship. While some may seem naturally gifted, anyone can harness their unique talents through self-awareness and strategic development. The HIGH5 strengths assessment provides insight into your distinct abilities, empowering you to enhance creativity, work ethic, and research prowess for maximum writing success. By understanding your strengths, you can optimize your writing journey and achieve your full potential.

Everyone has their unique individualized approach to writing, but there are ways to further your writing career while also bringing out your inherent strengths.

By furthering your writing strengths, you can excel in any writing style and boost your writing skills. In his article, we will discuss some writing tips that can greatly impact your success in your individual writing journey.

What are the Strengths and Qualities of a Good Writer?

Recognizing and leveraging your personal strengths is pivotal to accomplishing your writing ambitions. The HIGH5 strengths assessment illuminates your innate talents, allowing you to make informed decisions about the writing genres and subjects that align with your abilities. For instance, if creativity emerges as a dominant strength, you may thrive in fictional storytelling or descriptive writing. Conversely, if analysis is a core skill, expository or persuasive writing could be a better fit. By taking the HIGH5 test, you unlock self-awareness, enabling you to intentionally steer your writing career towards paths that accentuate your unique brilliance.

Many writers learn to utilize their strengths to contribute to their success. There are specific strengths that unite such successful authors and writers across all topics of literature.

A few of the benefits of having such strengths include:

• Assists you in getting a job and advances your career.
• Helps you clearly explain your points, communicate a story, and depict a narrative/persuade others.
• Improves your focus and gets you to learn more about yourself.
• Boosts knowledge, creativity, efficiency, and imagination.
• Gets you more productive and eliminates stress.

Pro Tip From HIGH5 After taking the HIGH5 assessment , reflect deeply on the revealed strengths. Make a list of potential writing projects, topics, or styles that could tap into and stretch those abilities. Experiment with new approaches that play to your strengths to uncover writing opportunities you may have previously overlooked.

15 Must-Have Strengths as a Good Writer

Some strengths are truly key to having a productive writing routine and succeeding as a writer in general. While the writing community is certainly diverse, the best writers share some key strengths.

15 Strengths of a great writer:

Perseverance

Being focused, consistent idea and content flow, being goal-oriented, clear and diverse word choice, organizational abilities, passion for reading, clear and concise writing, persuasive content, proper use of emotion, networking skills and charisma.

Writers are bound to be presented with challenges in their careers. Whether it be researching an unfamiliar topic or dealing with difficult clients/bosses, perseverance is key to success.

Being persistent simply involves continuing the writing process, even when you feel like giving up. While it seems easy, this can be difficult at times. Nonetheless, it can undoubtedly be the difference between achieving success and falling short on your goals.

When do even the best writers make silly errors? Usually, this happens when they are unfocused. Avoiding errors must involve being focused.

Having an automatic writing assistant could help you catch such errors, but simply rereading your work will serve the same purpose. Getting enough sleep can also ensure you can stay focused. Also, be sure to avoid distractions while working.

Many new notions for content are constantly popping into the heads of creative writers. Be sure to keep track of these ideas, and write down anything you find exceptional. Explore any of these ideas, even if you do not know much about them. Keep learning and participating in writer’s block to keep your ideas fresh.

Having writing goals can greatly benefit any author. This can help you outline a career path. You can identify what you truly what in your writing career, whether that be educating the masses or pitching an important service. You will also be able to plan better if you have clear goals.

While or may not be a pleasant thought, you must acknowledge the fact that you will have unpleasant moments in your career. You must be able to bounce back from any failures and realize that your career does not spoil after one misstep. Many famous authors have had rough starts in their careers, but because of their resilience, they were able to achieve success.

Readers should be engaged and intrigued by your writing. Any writing teacher will tell you that the key to engagement is quality word choice and great article structure. Your writing should be reflective of your diverse vocabulary and immense knowledge of a specific topic. The right words can really leave a lasting impact on your readers.

Even though word choice is crucially important, sentence structure and paragraph organization is equally critical. Having easily readable sentences and paragraphs can make your content more engaging. Try to shorten your sentences and paragraphs. Use subheadings so your readers can easily find the right information.

Good writers can quickly realize their own writing weaknesses and strengths. By consistently reading, you can find flaws in your own writing. You will be exposed to new ideas and perspectives. This new insight can later be applied to your own articles.

Many writers believe that their work is simply a reflection of their own inner creativity and thoughts. Out-of-the-box thinking can make your writing unique and offer your readers an intriguing perspective that they cannot find anywhere else. To get your creative juices flowing, consider reading new perspectives and adding your own unique spin to them.

Your readers must understand your content for it to be considered high quality. Be minimalistic and clear with the way you write, both in your word choice and in your sentence structure. Use vocabulary that is appropriate for the target audience and utilize shorter sentences.

Good writers are excited by the topics they write about. Because of this, they do not mind seeking out new knowledge about the topic they are writing about. While there are many forms of writing, all of them require a passion for knowledge seeking and communicating new knowledge to your audience.

You should not need to seek approval from anyone else before creating your articles. Have some faith in your work, and be sure to truly speak your mind when writing. Do not write something on someone else’s behalf, unless you feel comfortable doing so.

Your confidence will be evident in your tone of writing. When the audience knows you know what you are talking about, they are more likely to listen.

Some types of content require a persuasive approach. For instance, essay writing could focus on convincing the audience of the same view as the author. One of the main aspects of writing a great essay is using logic and emotion to convince the audience to see the world from your perspective.

Utilizing a persuasive approach to writing can give you more power within the industry and establish a clear, professional tone in your work.

Writing is not simply reciting facts and figures. Instead, injecting a proper amount of emotion into your articles is one of the greatest strengths for writers. It can make you sound more relatable to your audience. Being more approachable and relatable as an author can make your work more engaging and entertaining to readers.

Getting your name out there can be essential in the writing industry. This is precisely why networking is so key to being a great writer.

Being a great networker can also expose you to many great writing opportunities and you could also meet many new like-minded professionals. You could learn a plethora of new skills from these other writers, which you can later apply to benefit your career.

5 Examples of Weaknesses in Writing

As with any group of professionals, writers are not perfect. They have their own list of weaknesses. These common weaknesses can hold back writers to not achieving their full potential.

A 5 common examples of weaknesses that even quality writers have to include:

Unengaging Content and Boring Your Readers

Not enough focus, lack of substance, odd flow/structure, long-winded sentences.

Often, authors will have their writing spiral into many unrelated directions. This can be confusing to your readers. Instead, choose one topic and really focus on it to make your content sound narrowed and specific.

You can add more substance to your articles by including a personal story, metaphors, citations, research, statistics, or graphs/other visual elements.

The smooth flow is consistent and makes logical sense from the first word to the last. It ensures readers do not get confused or lost in the text.

Try to put yourself into the reader’s shoes to see what questions or comments they may have from reading your work. Then, address these questions or rewrite some of the phrasings to make your points clearer.

A sentence length mix within your articles can make your text less monotonous. However, sentences should generally be on the shorter side. They create more readable content for readers.

To address this common issue, try cutting your longest sentences into a few shorter ones. Try to keep the average sentence length to 14 words, preferably less.

How to Identify Your Strengths and Weaknesses in Writing?

Unfortunately, many writers are often blind to their own flaws. Other times, they are prone to overfocusing on the negative elements of their writing and overlook their strengths. To best identify your strengths and weaknesses, you should seek the assistance of an objective third party that you trust.

One way to get quality feedback is by asking your friends, family, coworkers, or bosses. If the individual is familiar with your writing style, they can give you some feedback on its engagement level. Be sure that they align with the intended audience, though.

Your boss may be able to provide more in-depth feedback, as he/she has the most consistent access to your work. Consider asking your audience directly, too. Send out a survey to your email list if you have one.

Another great way to assess your skills and flaws is by taking the HIGH5 test . It efficiently evaluates both your strengths and weaknesses by giving you a concise overview of your personal abilities. Once you get your strengths and weaknesses test results, all you must do is consider how these abilities contribute to your writing.

Pro Tip From HIGH5 After receiving your HIGH5 assessment results, schedule a consultation to discuss implementing the insights. An expert can help you map out a personalized plan to amplify your strengths and address weaker areas through targeted skill development.

What are the Strengths of Academic Writing?

Academic writers have a unique skill set, even when compared to other similarly trained authors.

In academic writing, the authors must be a master of using formal tone, appropriate sentence structure, specific word choice, and use of a third person. These writers should be willing to learn, adapt quickly, be able to argue, and provide high-quality evidence.

How to Turn Weaknesses Into Strengths in Writing

There are many ways to turn your writing flaws into writing skills. In fact, many of the most common weaknesses can be reimagined into strengths. Start by identifying which of the previously mentioned flaws most resonate with you.

From them, you can reapply your weaknesses. Sometimes, you simply need to change the audience you are writing to. Or, you may need to change the topic you are writing about. If you naturally write long, detailed sentences, consider writing more technical articles.

On the other hand, if you struggle with being persuasive and formal, consider writing lighthearted articles. With this method, you will better align your writing style with the correct topic and audience. Then, you must also find ways to grow as a writer.

While improving areas of weakness is admirable, a more sustainable approach amplifies your innate strengths as a writer. The HIGH5 assessment identifies your unique talents, allowing you to concentrate your efforts on roles and projects that naturally align with your abilities. If Brainstormer emerges as your forte, you could explore fiction writing or blogging rather than fixating on technical writing weaknesses. Conversely, if Analyst is your strength, editing or instructional writing may be a better avenue than a fictional narrative. By optimizing your efforts around your strengths, you can achieve greater fulfillment and excellence with less strain.

Also, keep your audience in mind when writing. If something you write does not make sense to your readers, rewrite it. Imagine what would resonate most with your audience. If they are technical professionals, write in a rich vocabulary with lots of citations. If your audience is reading for pleasure, consider a more relaxed, informal writing style.

Pro Tip From HIGH5 After reviewing your HIGH5 assessment results , list your top 3 strengths. Then, brainstorm potential writing projects, genres, or career paths that would allow you to immerse yourself in those strengths daily. Prioritize opportunities that lean into your natural talents over those requiring you to overcompensate for weaknesses.

Frequently Asked Questions About Strengths in Writing

What are your strengths in reading.

Strengths in reading help you understand literature better. It can help you put yourself into someone else’s shoes and better understand other perspectives. Strengths that contribute to efficient reading include imagination, creativity, empathy for other characters, quick comprehension, and so on.

What are the Weaknesses in Academic Writing?

While using an informal and relaxed tone is not usually inappropriate, it is not utilized in academic writing. Additionally, poor formatting, writing off-topic, badly chosen thesis statements, inadequate conclusions, weak transitions, vague writing, redundancy, awkward sentence structure, and poor grammar can also weaken an academic author’s impactfulness.

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Strengths in Writing (Find Out Your Strengths and Weaknesses)

Published: January 17, 2023 Last Modified: April 19, 2023

One of the best skills of a great writer is that they know their strengths in writing, and they know in which field they are weak.

With this knowledge, they can craft their work better than anyone else. They know how to turn a draft into a perfect piece of writing.

I love to write. It is one of my side passion and as a student, I always try to write whenever I get the time. I am writing online for about 4 years now and I’m committed to making myself a better writer.

With my experience of 4 years of constant writing, I discovered many things that may help a writer find their true potential of becoming a great writer. I still consider myself relatively new and I’m still learning many new things as I continue to write more and more.

Nowadays, there is an ongoing debate that AI will take over the writing industry. That’s why it’s more important to find out your strengths as a writer and also your weaknesses as a writer.

Finding out my strengths and weaknesses in writing has helped me understand what I write better, and it helped me improve my writing skills overall.

If a writer doesn’t know their strengths and weaknesses in writing, they won’t be able to understand how to edit their work or where to make improvements in their own writing.

So, in this article, I’m going to discuss the strengths in writing of a good writer. Additionally, you will also find out the weaknesses and how to overcome them.

Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses in the field they work in. Similarly, every writer has some strengths and weaknesses in their writing.

For instance, a good strength in writing can be being able to create clear, compelling, and engaging content that resonates with your audience. You may have a good vocabulary and using this advantage you can craft better writing than others.

You may also have weaknesses in your writing such as, not being able to revise your work thoroughly and not being able to find out where to make edits to improve your writing.

You may procrastinate while writing, which is a common issue for many writers—even I suffer from this.

But don’t worry there are many ways to overcome these weaknesses and with enough practice, it’s possible to completely overcome these limitations of writing.

With this out of the way, let’s dive further into today’s topic—strengths and weaknesses in writing.

By the end of this article, you will have a better understanding of your own writing abilities and be better equipped to improve your writing skills. Enjoy!

Strengths in Writing:

I always strive to improve and gain experience as a writer. With time, I’ve been able to find out my own strengths as a writer, which has improved my writing significantly.

Here are the 9 strengths in writing:

1. Originality

Originality is one of the most important strengths in writing. It is the ability to come up with new and unique ideas that make their writing stand out.

Being original about your writing makes you more believable and thus helps strengthen your relationship with the reader. As a result, their work often captures the reader’s attention. This will make readers come back to read your content more and more.

One of the key ways that good writers achieve originality is by being open-minded and being their own selves. They are always looking for new information and new perspectives, and are not afraid to explore uncharted territory in their writing.

They can see the connections between different ideas and concepts. They can use these connections to develop new and original perspectives.

Good writers have a distinct writing style that sets them apart from others. They are able to use their own experiences, observations, and emotions to create writing that is personal and authentic.

In short, originality is an essential strength for any good writer. It allows them to stand out from the crowd, capture the reader’s attention, and create writing that is truly unique.

2. Being Able To Focus More

Being focused is also a must-have ability of a good writer. Good writers have the ability to focus their attention on the task at hand, even when there are distractions around them.

You know this can be hard for beginner writers. Oftentimes, when you are new to writing, you will lose focus while writing, and words won’t come naturally while writing—I’ve been there.

When I was at the beginning of my writing career, I used to lose focus because of the silliest thing possible. But as time went on, I became more experienced and was able to focus more while writing.

One way of achieving more focus is to turn off distractions such as social media, notifications, and other external factors. This way you can focus more on the task at hand and maintain your concentration for extended periods of time.

If you are more focused you will make fewer mistakes while writing. This will help you to produce high-quality work that is free of errors and typos. Thus resulting in more content in less time.

3. Making Things Easy To Understand for the Readers

This is not as simple as it sounds. Most beginner writers fail to achieve this. You know, nobody will read your writing if you are just being factual and boring. While explaining a topic be more engaging with your readers and provide them examples so they can better understand the topic you are explaining.

Good writers understand the importance of tailoring their writing to their audience and adapting their style accordingly. Just be simple and use direct language. You don’t need to be over-scientific. Avoid using technical terms that may confuse your readers.

Use things like headings, subheadings, bullet points, and other formatting tools to help guide the reader through your writing. Always remember to use small paragraphs containing two or three lines. This will make your content more readable.

This ability helps a writer connect with their audience and produce writing that is accessible, engaging, and effective.

4. A Passion for Reading

I know, I know—you’ve probably heard this a dozen times. But believe me, if you don’t have a passion for reading, you probably won’t go too far in your writing career. This is a must-have strength of a good writer.

I love to read. I always learn from other creative writers and their writing styles. When I started writing for Medium, I started by reading other great articles. This helped me understand how a better writer writes for their audience.

You know reading will help you find inspiration from the writing of others. This will help you develop the ability to analyze and understand the writing of others.

Reading will help you identify the techniques and styles that other writers use to create effective and engaging writing. You can then apply these techniques and styles to your own writing, creating writing that is polished, well-written, and effective.

5. Researching

I’ve always said this to beginner writers and I will keep repeating it. Researching is the single best way to earn the trust of your readers. If you don’t have data in your writing why would anyone trust you?

At least do some research before writing, if you can’t generate data by doing your own experiments—no worries, use other people’s research and properly cite them in your article. This will help you gain more trust and make your writing more believable because it has actual real data.

If you learn the ability to conduct thorough research and gather information that is relevant to your topic, you will be a better writer in no time.

One of the key ways that good writers conduct research is by using a variety of different sources. They understand that different types of sources provide different types of information, and they use a range of primary and secondary sources to gather the information they need.

Books, articles, academic papers, interviews, online resources, and many other things may come in handy while researching and writing your piece.

6. Setting a Goal

Better writers always set goals before starting their writing. Good writers understand that setting goals helps them to stay on track and focused on their writing, which ultimately improves the quality of their work.

Many intermediate writers also set timelines for their goals, they understand that setting a deadline for a goal will help them to stay focused and motivated. They set deadlines for different milestones of the writing process and make sure to stick to them.

However, they don’t set goals that are very broad. They understand that setting a goal such as “I want to write a book” is too broad and does not provide enough direction.

Instead, they set specific goals like “I want to write a fiction novel of at least 90,000 words in the next 6 months, and I will write about 500 words every day to achieve this goal” This is measurable, specific, and achievable.

7. Diverse Vocabulary and Word Choice

Good writers understand the power of words and the impact they can have on the reader’s understanding and perception of the writing.

Good writers understand the power of descriptive language to create vivid images in the reader’s mind and to convey emotion. They use descriptive words and phrases to create detailed imagery and to make their writing more engaging and interesting.

Good writers also understand the importance of appropriate word choice for the audience and the purpose of the writing. They use formal language for academic writing and more casual language for blog posts for example.

Simply a passion for reading and exposing yourself to different forms of writing will go long way to help you achieve this strength as a writer. Reading more will help you to learn new words and phrases and to expand your vocabulary.

8. Understanding the Audience and Grasping Their Emotion Through Writing

As a writer, you will want to have the ability to identify the audience’s needs, preferences, and emotions, and to use this understanding to create writing that resonates with them.

This will help you to achieve a more engaged audience and help you make your own branding in writing.

Good writers understand the importance of using emotions in their writing. They understand that emotions can be a powerful tool to connect with the audience and to make their writing more engaging.

They are able to connect with their readers on a deeper level, which makes their writing more impactful and meaningful.

Using words and phrases that evoke emotions, such as joy, fear, anger, and sadness creates an emotional connection with the audience.

This can be very difficult to achieve as a beginner writer, but it will become easier as you gain more experience in writing.

9. Better Creativity

We have come to the final point of today’s topic, which is better creativity. Good writers are creative. They understand that writing is not just about putting words on a page, but about using those words to create something truly unique and special.

They have the ability to think outside the box, come up with new and interesting ideas, and take their writing in unexpected and exciting directions.

Better writers are able to use their own creativity and imagination and use it to create writing that is truly original and memorable.

You will have to see things differently as a writer. Don’t be afraid to challenge conventions, and explore new and unconventional ideas in your writing. This will help you be more unique and creative.

However, don’t try to overdo it as it can sometimes cause you to lose your personal voice and originality in your content, just try to sound as natural and original as possible while exploring new ideas.

How Do You Identify Your Strengths in Writing?

There are a few ways to identify your strengths in your writing. I’ve gathered some of them here:

• Try to take some time to think about your writing and the writing process. Find out what you enjoy about writing and what comes naturally to you. Think about what topic is easy and what topic is difficult for you.
• Ask for feedback from others on your writing. Look for patterns in the feedback you receive, and pay attention to what people compliment you on.
• Keep a journal of your writing process. Whenever you get the time, just write down your thoughts, ideas, and what you found easy or difficult about your writing. Review your journal regularly to see if you can identify any patterns or strengths.
• Experiment with different forms of writing such as poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and journalism. With this, you can identify what type of writing you are better at and what you enjoy the most.

Weaknesses In Writing

People have their own strengths and weaknesses in every field of work. Same for the writers as well. Just like identifying strengths, identifying weaknesses in writing is an important step in improving your craft. I’ve gathered some of the weaknesses in writing.

However, in this article, I’ll just mention the weaknesses and not actually describe them in detail. I may write another article about the weaknesses in writing later. Here are some of the weaknesses in writing:

• Lack of focus.
• Difficulty organizing thoughts and ideas in a logical and coherent manner.
• Difficulty using descriptive language.
• Not conducting thorough research and incorporating information into the writing.
• Lack of editing and revising after writing your content.

Ways To Overcome Weaknesses In Writing

You may have weaknesses in your writing. But there are ways to overcome these weaknesses as well. To be a better writer, it’s important to identify and overcome your weaknesses in writing. Here are some ways you can overcome them and take a step closer to becoming a better writer:

Practice Practice and Practice:

Regular practice is one of the best ways to improve your writing skills. The more you write, the more you will become familiar with your weaknesses and will be able to work on them.

You will easily understand your limits as a writer and what to do in order to improve.

Read Read and Read:

I can’t stress this enough. Reading is really very essential part of becoming a better writer. If you read articles and books by great writers you will understand what I’m talking about.

This will also help you improve your mistakes and weaknesses as a beginner writer.

Set Specific and Achievable Goals:

Setting clear goals can help you to focus on areas where you need to improve and measure your progress. I always try to follow this.

You know if you target to write a 5000 words article in one sitting you will easily get bored. Instead, set small goals of writing 500 words in one sitting then take a break, and then continue on to complete the full article. This helps a lot.

Use Editing Tools:

If you are a slow writer and want to reduce your editing time then this is a must. You know, there are several online tools and software that can help you to identify and correct grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors.

I use Grammarly to reduce typing and grammatical mistakes. Titlecaseconverter to edit my titles and headlines. You can use Hemingway Editor to simplify your sentences for readers. There are many other useful tools to help make your writing journey easier, use those to your advantage.

Be Consistent:

Consistency is the key to writing success. You have to continue to write no matter how hard it gets. Try to write every day and stop procrastinating .

Develop a writing routine, maintain a consistent tone and voice, and keep a clear focus on the message and purpose of your writing.

You will get more experience and this way you can improve your writing and overcome your weaknesses.

Get Feedback From Your Audience:

This can be a great way to overcome your weaknesses. Feedback will help you improve the quality and effectiveness of your writing. You can conduct surveys or questionnaires to gather feedback from your audience.

However, it’s also important to consider the type of feedback you receive. Some feedback may be positive, while other feedback may be more critical.

It’s important to take all feedback into consideration but to also use your own judgment in determining which feedback to incorporate into your writing.

Final Thoughts

To improve your writing, it’s important to identify your strengths and weaknesses and to take steps to overcome your weaknesses. Knowing your own strength can help boost your confidence as a writer, which goes a long way to keep you motivated while writing.

Keep in mind that becoming a good writer is a continuous process, and it takes time and practice. Be patient with yourself, and remember that every writer has strengths and weaknesses.

The key is to keep practicing and gain more experience as a writer. Identify your weaknesses and work your way to overcome them. With time and effort, you can improve your writing skills and become a better writer.

I hope this article helped you understand how to identify your strengths in writing and overcome weaknesses in writing. Thanks for reading.

You might be interested to read the following to increase your experience and strengths as a writer:

• How to write a d&d campaign

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4.6 SELF-REFLECTION: What Are Your Strengths and Weaknesses in Writing an Academic Research Essay in English?

• What are your strengths in writing an academic research essay in English? 
• What are your weaknesses in writing an academic research essay in English?

ACADEMIC Writing Skills

• Getting ideas, planning, and organizing my essay
• Writing thesis statements for an essay
• Writing effective introduction and conclusion paragraphs
• Developing and supporting my ideas with good examples and complex sentences
• Organizing my ideas logically into strong paragraphs
• Using grammar correctly (verb tenses, subject-verb agreement, etc.)
• Using vocabulary correctly (including spelling)
• Using MLA format to cite information that I use from other sources
• Identifying and evaluating secondary sources of information to support my own ideas or opinions
• Summarizing and paraphrasing information from other sources
• Editing and proofreading, finding and correcting mistakes

Synthesis Copyright © 2022 by Timothy Krause is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Writing a Paper: Reflecting & Improving

Introduction.

The writing process is circular; it does not end when you submit the paper to your instructor. In order to make progress with each assignment, you will need to optimize feedback, reflect on your strengths and weaknesses, and plan for improvement. Review the sections below for more guidance on evaluating and improving your own writing.

Reflecting on Strengths & Weaknesses

To reflect is to think deeply about something. The activity of reflection does not need to be formal in nature.  Simply sit down with a copy of your paper and consider the last week or so you spent writing it.

Areas to consider:

• Time management (Did I plan out time to complete this assignment effectively? What steps should I devote more to in the future?)
• Research skills and use of sources (What great research resources did I discover?  Where can I look for help?)
• Critical reading and note taking (Did I read the assignment closely to make sure I addressed every component? What prewriting strategies seemed to work for me?)
• Organization (Was there an introduction and a conclusion? Did each paragraph have a topic sentence?)
• Argument and analysis (Was my thesis statement clear and specific? Did I explain the evidence for the reader by integrating analysis with summary?)
• Rhythm and flow of the language (Did I use transitions to show relationships? Were my sentences a variety of long and short?)
• In-text citation and references (Did I cite sources appropriately? What aspects of citation or references are still confusing to me?)
• Grammar and punctuation (Were all sentences complete, with a subject and verb? What punctuation was problematic for me?)

Actions to consider:

• Take notes on what difficulties you encountered during the writing process and brainstorm solutions for the future.
• Record your instructor's comments and track these for each assignment.
• Read through the paper, highlighting problem areas in one color and successful areas in another.
• Jot down these strengths and weaknesses and keep them by your writing desk.
• Compare an earlier paper to the one you just completed. Do you see positive change?

Planning for Improvement

Reflection can help you identify the areas for improvement, but in order to actually move forward, you will need to make a plan and remind yourself of your goals. After identifying your writing strengths and weaknesses:

• Celebrate your strengths by congratulating yourself on what you did well.
• Browse the Writing Center website for material on the particular skills you would like to acquire. 
• Attend a live webinar or view past lessons on anything from academic argument to engaging sentence structure. 
• Sign up for a writing course to supplement your other courses and elevate your writing.
• Use the automated grammar checker Grammarly , free for Walden students.
• Practice new writing techniques in discussion post assignments, where there is less pressure to perform well.
• Take one of the Writing Center's interactive quizzes to test your knowledge as you learn.
• Create a checklist for your next writing assignment. The most important thing to remember is that becoming a better writer takes time.

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How to Structure An Essay: Avoiding Six Weaknesses In Papers

TIP Sheet HOW TO STRUCTURE AN ESSAY: AVOIDING SIX MAJOR WEAKNESSES IN PAPERS

Writing a paper is a lot like painting your house: the bulk of the work is in the preparation–scraping, sanding, cleaning, applying primer. If you fail in the prep work, the finished product will be less than excellent. Similarly, it is the quality of prep work-the brainstorming, prewriting, drafting, revising-that makes some papers stand out as excellent.

It is a common mistake for students to want to start editing their papers before they have substantially revised them. Before you start to stress over individual words and punctuation marks, give your paper a critical read. Does your claim hang together in such a way that an educated reader can follow it? Elegant phrasing and multi-syllable words will not make up for weakness in the development of your argument.

Identifying six major weaknesses Six major weaknesses can doom your paper to mediocrity or worse:

A too-broad thesis statement A poorly formulated thesis Inadequate or unfocused topic sentences Writing off-subject Failing to anticipate objections An inadequate conclusion

The checklist below can help you discover whether your paper suffers from any of these errors. Ask yourself whether all of the following statements are true of your paper.

My subject is limited enough for adequate treatment for this length of paper. My thesis statement is a discussable point and is in the form of a declarative sentence. I have used specific, focused topic sentences to support my thesis statement. All my sentences directly or indirectly support my thesis statement-I have not digressed or written "off the subject." I have not contradicted my thesis statement. I have anticipated the major objections to my thesis and have tried to address and overcome them. My closing paragraph restates the thesis (if necessary) and draws conclusions based on the points I have already discussed in my paper.

If any of these statements are not true, read ahead to find explanations and suggestions that may help.

1. The too-broad thesis statement Many papers fail largely because the writer attempts to write on a subject so broad that he simply cannot adequately address it. Narrow down the topic to one that interests you, and for which source information is available, and that you can discuss adequately in the length assigned. The following sentence might have a legitimate place in a paper (as part of an introduction, perhaps), but it would fail as a thesis statement because it is too broad for a typical three- to four-page paper:

In American schools, there are many kinds of acceptable dress codes and classroom behaviors.

The phrase "American schools" includes pre-, elementary, intermediate, and high schools; public and private colleges; technical schools; adult schools; schools with and without uniform requirements; schools in conservative Midwestern towns and those in diverse urban areas; religious schools; progressive schools–too many schools, too many populations of students to discuss all at once.

Many urban-area public schools are weighing the advantages and disadvantages of requiring students to wear uniforms, and quite a few are deciding that uniforms are the way to go for several reasons.

2. The poorly formulated thesis A thesis should treat a discussable point-that is, a topic that merits discussion because more than one point of view is sane and plausible. While it is possible, for example, to support the following statements, the resulting paper would likely not be very interesting because the points are not discussable:

A dog is a four-legged domestic mammal. A friend is someone who is always there for you. Humans need oxygen to live.

Reformulated, these statements can become more discussable and interesting:

Dogs are smelly, dumb, destructive eating machines, and I couldn't live without mine. My friend Brad uses humor to encourage me to set high standards for myself. In the absence of free oxygen, very different life forms might have emerged on earth.

Even a discussable thesis can fail to make its point clear. This is frustrating to the reader, who at the very least is entitled to a clear statement of your claim (unless it is obviously implied–a technique not recommended for beginners!). Compare the following vague theses with the stronger examples given above:

What do most people think about dogs? Are they man's best friend or worst enemy? In my estimation, a sense of humor is a valuable thing. Oxygen is especially vital for animal life forms.

Try the following to help sharpen a vague thesis statement:

• Avoid questions, which are useful as attention-getting devices, but are difficult to use as a thesis statement. For example, avoid "Why should students be given more freedom to choose elective subjects?" Instead use "Students should be given more freedom to choose elective subjects," or even "Students should not be given more freedom to choose elective subjects."
• Avoid "I think," "I believe," "In my opinion," or "To me." Such expressions are overly subjective and unnecessary; remember that you are presenting evidence to support your thesis statement, even if you are writing a narrative or descriptive paper. Besides, a simple declarative statement is a much stronger way to say what you think.
• Contrary to what you might think, absolute statements do not strengthen a thesis. Avoid them unless you are certain you can support them. Few statements (other than known facts–like the nondiscussable points above) can be proven completely to everyone's satisfaction. If you overstate your case with an absolute statement, and then fail to support it, you lose credibility. Use words like "seems," "seldom," "maybe," "probably," "possibly," and "almost." Avoid "certainly," "absolutely," "always," or "never."

3. Inadequate or unfocused topic sentences Do not, out of enthusiasm, haste, or laziness, abandon the basics of paragraph structure for paragraphs subsequent to your thesis statement. From start to finish the paper should follow a consistent progression leading coherently to a reasonable, well thought out conclusion. Therefore, make sure every single paragraph in your paper contains its own clearly stated topic sentence as well as the specific details to support each, though not necessarily in that order–the following example, for instance, starts with an illustration and concludes with a topic sentence:

At George Washington Junior High School, after students had been wearing uniforms only five months, groups of students who formerly occupied separate areas of the lunch yard began sitting closer to each other and talking to each other more. School administrators concluded that the wearing of school uniforms had obscured the socioeconomic differences between students and resulted in more social mixing between the groups.

Compare the above example with the following too-general claim:

Wearing school uniforms is socially good for junior high school students.

In short, fuzziness in topic sentences suggests fuzziness in thinking. If you settle for vagueness in your topic sentences, you will be more likely to write off-topic or jump around from topic to topic. Clarifying your topic sentence–clarifying your thinking–will go a long way toward producing an organized and convincing paper.

4. Writing off-subject Your thesis statement is a promise to your reader about what you will cover in your paper. Don't write "off" this subject; don't include sentences that do not support or elaborate on this main idea. For instance, if your thesis statement for an expository "process" paper is "Making a set of bookshelves requires precise skills," don't include sentences describing your favorite author or the kinds of books you plan to place in the bookshelves. If your thesis statement for a descriptive paper is "My room is a place of refuge," don't include more than incidental references to the other parts of the house or to your neighborhood.

A narrative sometimes seems particularly difficult to contain within the confines of a thesis statement. Consider, for example, a narrative paper about the biggest fish you ever caught. "The biggest fish I ever caught at Bass Lake hit on my spare house key at the very end of a long day of fishing." A common mistake is to tell the story of the entire fishing trip: when you left home, where you stopped for gas and bait, a description of the scenery, and so on. Remember that what you have promised to tell your reader is about catching the biggest fish ever; every sentence and paragraph should relate to this.

5. Failing to anticipate objections Especially for an argumentative or persuasive paper, you must acknowledge and attempt to overcome objections to your thesis. For example, consider the following thesis statement: "Courses in Western Civilization should not be required of American college students. If they prefer Asian, African, or Native American Studies, for example, these should be acceptable alternatives to Western Studies." Here are two plausible objections to the preceding statement:

Western civilization represents the core culture of American students; to be successful in this culture, they must understand it.

The study of Western culture should be required in addition to Asian, African, or other cultures, in order to foster understanding of the modern global community.

Objections like these can be merely acknowledged-"Although some people insist that all students in American should study Western culture..."–or broken down and discussed in detail, point by point. Decide whether your topic–or the objection itself–is strong enough to warrant detailed discussion of opposing viewpoints.

6. An inadequate conclusion Usually, student writers should write a concluding paragraph that summarizes the topic sentence (in words different from those used earlier) and restates the thesis (again, in different words). The conclusion should include the most important idea from your paper, the one you most want readers to remember. (Some papers may differ; the conclusion to a narrative essay, for example, may not follow this pattern.)

My room is one of the quietest, most beautiful, and most spacious rooms I have seen. Within the confines of my room, I can work, I can think, I can rest. It is, indeed, a place of refuge in a noisy, crowded, and often ugly world.

An effective conclusion "returns" to the material in the introduction–the imagery, metaphor, or analogy found there, for instance. A satisfying conclusion may also contain one last anecdote to illustrate the thesis. Choose a technique that seems appropriate to your subject matter and the tone of your paper.

Although beginners should stick to the techniques outlined above, experienced writers often do one more thing-they draw a conclusion beyond the points already made.

I would not be where I am today if I had not been forced to view my life in an honest manner. Alcohol almost killed me many times, and I am still only one drink away from a life of hell. I have been sober for almost two years, and I have never felt happier or more serene. With God's grace, I will stay sober today. Tomorrow will take care of itself.

While not introducing new material, this kind of conclusion both summarizes and points out more far-reaching consequences, gives a warning, or offers an alternative suggested by or based on the ideas already put forth.

Minor Weaknesses In addition to the major weaknesses above, minor errors can diminish the apparent strength of your argument and result in a paper that is merely adequate. After correcting major problems, check for some of the errors below:

Weak, vague or poorly developed introduction Sentence errors including Unintentional fragmentary sentences Run-on sentences, especially the "comma splice"–using a comma to separate two sentences Short, choppy sentences or lack of sentence variety Poor or nonexistent transitions Awkward sentences due to lack of parallel structure or due to dangling or misplaced modifiers Word errors such as Use of the wrong word or phrase, for example, its or it's Nonstandard English–"they was," "he don't,"-use of double negatives, and so on Trite expressions such as "hit the hay," "gave me a turn," "acid test" Monotonous or ineffective repetition Wrong word choice for the style, tone, or content: formal language in an informal paper, for example, or informal language in a formal paper. Verb tense disagreement Wrong use of subjunctive verb forms, such as in conditional statements Subject/verb non-agreement Errors in pronoun reference "Padding"–using words simply to fill space Plagiarizing, that is, failing to cite source material

Finally, proofread adequately to correct punctuation, spelling, and typing errors

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How to Showcase Your Strengths in Your College Application Essays

Your admission essay is an adcom’s greatest insight into who you are as a person. It can also be a tool to showcase your high school accomplishments. So, how can you craft an essay that both conveys your personality and portrays your strengths—without coming off as arrogant? Here are four tips to guide you.

1. Paint a picture.

This is a phrase that English teachers have drilled into your head, but it’s true for your college essay and in all your written work. Painting a picture of your accomplishments through examples and rhetorical devices helps adcoms visualize the steps you’ve taken to get to where you are today and the person you are and strive to be.

How can you show rather than tell? There are many ways to express yourself through language, from personalized metaphors —actions, experiences, or objects that mirror and symbolize your journey—to rich, vivid details. This is especially true in your essay, but you can also employ these rhetorical devices and language throughout your application, such as in your extracurricular accomplishment descriptions.

For instance, if you’re a pianist, you might use imagery to describe the progression of your musical development, initially exploring playing one note at a time to learning how to play the music you play today. You could evoke specific sounds and melodies to illustrate this development.

2. Use action-oriented verbs.

Rather than relying on soft adjectives, use action verbs like “implemented,” “facilitated,” and so on. These types of words are much more powerful and demonstrate that you do and make things happen. They also emphasize your ownership of your achievements, signifying that these achievements don’t just happen to you: you made them happen.

For example, rather than saying that you were responsible for speaking on behalf of the student body as student council president, you might say, “Raised awareness of X issue and implemented a procedure for handling complaints.”

3. Offer examples and details.

Examples are an essential feature of your essay. They illustrate your accomplishments, provide context, and show adcoms how you’ve made an impact in concrete ways. You should also use numerical values and other details to quantify your accomplishments.

In this post on successful activity entries, students use details to summarize and portray their accomplishments. While this post concerns another section of your application, you can apply the same concepts to your essay.

Example: “Provided homework and study help to underprivileged kids. I studied with one girl until her Cs became As. I love being the “go-to” mentor.”

Here, the applicant shows the impact of her tutoring, rather than simply stating that she tutored. In doing so, she demonstrates the impact on both her and the students she tutored.

Example: “I have been studying piano and performing in recitals since kindergarten. I’m currently working on Beethoven’s Sonata No. 1 in F minor from Opus 2.”

This entry shows the progression of the applicant’s work by demonstrating how far she has come, exemplified by the challenging piece she’s currently playing.

These examples bring your experiences to life, so you’re not just listing achievements but also quantifying them and pointing to concrete ways in which they’ve affected you and others.

4. Tell a story.

Like any good story, your essay should have a narrative arc. Instead of a list of achievements, it should portray an experience that shaped you. No matter what topic you choose, you should be able to tell an account that captures your reader’s attention and has all the hallmarks of a compelling narrative.

For instance, if you’re a first-generation student, you might begin by describing a specific moment in your childhood when you realized that you would be the first member of your family to attend college and then narrate specific events along your journey, such as encouragement from your parents or teachers, difficulties you faced and how you overcame them, and how you finally reached this moment and are excited about the next chapter. This is much more effective than simply stating that you’re a first-generation student and listing the reasons why attending college is important to you.

If you can’t weave together a compelling story with the topic you’ve chosen, you may want to rethink it. Spend some time brainstorming to hone your topic and ensure that it is one that will both capture your audience and showcase your accomplishments.

Your Essay: A Reflection of You

Your essay is a concise glimpse into you as a person. While other areas of your application detail your accomplishments, grades, and extracurricular achievements, this is a place to showcase your qualities as a person. Still, your accomplishments are most likely integral to your personality. Keep these tips in mind as you craft an essay that both captures your character and your strengths as a candidate for admission.

Want help with your college essays to improve your admissions chances? Sign up for your free CollegeVine account and get access to our essay guides and courses. You can also get your essay peer-reviewed and improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays.

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Editing: analyzing your writing strengths and weaknesses.

You’ve hopefully integrated many of the principles covered in the Fundamentals of Writing for Researchers module in writing several drafts of your manuscript. It’s now time to put the finishing touches on your work.

By reflecting on these summary principles and checking your work based on the questions presented here, you’ll ensure your research is both easily accessible and understandable, therefore persuading your reader that your problem, approach, and findings are valid.

Editing for Content

Is your purpose immediately clear? Or will readers have to wade through six or eight paragraphs before understanding the purpose of each of the sections or the paper as a whole? Get to the point right away. Be explicit. Don’t write in a mystery-story fashion.

Have you limited your subject in each of your sections sufficiently? Or did you cover items that don’t relate to the main theme or purpose of each?

Did you leave out major points that could help readers gain a better understanding of your purpose or point?

Are your supporting details adequate? Have you developed each topic fully enough?

Did you include too many supporting details? Are your paragraphs or sections weighed down with more facts than your readers need or want to know?

Is your organization easy to follow? Did you move from beginning to end in a logical way? Or does your flow of ideas ramble and confuse readers? Did you use headings and subheadings consistently to guide the reader?

Does your copy answer the following questions as they relate to the main theme: “Who, What, When, Where, Why and How”?

Does your writing also answer the question, “So what”? In other words, do you tell readers the implications of your research; that is, how your research adds to the literature?

Editing for Paragraph Strength

Does each paragraph contain a topic sentence and deal with only that topic.

Including more than one will confuse your readers. In the example below, each sentence supports or elaborates upon the topic sentence, “Whales are the most intelligent creatures ever to inhabit the earth.” Each subsequent sentence tells the reader why. The logic of the paragraph would have suffered had the writer included a sentence such as, “Whales continually need to search for food in order to survive” because searching for food has nothing to do with intelligence. Amoebas search for food.

Well written: “Whales are among the most intelligent creatures ever to inhabit the earth. Scientists studying whales rate their intelligence on a level with higher primates because of their complex group behavior. For example, these huge and impressive mammals have been seen teaching and disciplining their young, helping wounded fellow whales, engaging in elaborate sexual foreplay, and playing in definite game-like patterns. They are able to coordinate complex group activities because of their apparently effective communications system of sonar clicks and pings. All in all, scientific evidence shows that whales have a higher order of social organization. Unfortunately, the whales&rquo; intelligence is ignored by an industry that threatens them with extinction.”

Does each sentence in the paragraph contribute to the main idea in the paragraph?

Have you supported your main idea with one or more of the following: facts, examples, incidents, arguments, and reasons?

Well written: “Employees in both business and industry should receive pay raises to cope with the rising cost of necessities. Food, for example, costs almost twice as much as it did five to ten years ago. Not too long ago a family of four had an adequate supply of food for about forty dollars a week, but today the same items cost eighty dollars or more. For example, ground beef that had sold for one dollar a pound now costs two dollars a pound. A loaf of bread now costs two dollars instead of eighty to ninety cents. Unless wages match rising prices, people will have difficulty buying necessities such as food.”

The above example illustrates excellent supporting statements for the main idea (topic sentence). The writer moves from a general statement or claim to increasingly more detailed examples as to why the claim is made; that is, why employees pay raises should align with cost of living increases. This can best be illustrated by the following paragraph breakdown:

Employees in both business and industry should receive pay raises to cope with the rising cost of necessities.

• For example, ground beef that had sold for one dollar a pound now costs two dollars a pound.
• A loaf of bread now costs two dollars instead of eighty to ninety cents.

Unless wages match rising prices, people will have difficulty buying necessities such as food.

Is each paragraph developed in a logical way? Will your readers be able to follow your thoughts?

Both of the example paragraphs above contain a naturally logical progression of thought and are easy to read because of it. It doesn’t matter if the first draft of your paragraph makes sense to you; you must ensure that the progression makes sense to your reader.

Are your thoughts in each paragraph linked where necessary by:

• Transitional words, such as “however,” “also,” “yet,” “although,” and so on?
• Repetition of a word or idea (sometimes in form of synonym) from the preceding sentence?

The following paragraph includes highlighted words and phrases to show how they increase readability; they link the writer’s thoughts and help with the flow of the paragraph, despite a rather boring topic. The last sentence also serves as a transition because it prepares the reader for the topic in the succeeding paragraph.

Excellent use of transitions: “We do not read textbooks for amusement. Therefore, we should not use the same method for studying them that we use when reading novels. For one thing, much of the pleasure of reading fiction comes from our continuing surprise as the story unfolds, but we are usually confused by surprises in textbooks. For another, a good piece of fiction keeps us interested, awake, actively involved. However, textbooks often put us to sleep because there is no “action.” And finally, it is not very important if we miss or forget some of the details or events in a novel. But that is surely not the case when dealing with a textbook.”

Have you varied the lengths of your paragraphs?

When you look at each of your pages, check to see if your paragraphs vary in length. And length here refers to the “visual height” of the paragraphs. You need to vary the lengths of your paragraphs. Otherwise, readability is compromised by visually predictable blocks of text.

Editing for Brevity and Clarity

Have you purged each sentence of extraneous words.

Weed out every word that adds nothing to meaning and understanding. Examples: Change “during the course of” to “during” and “few in number” to “few.”

Example: “The end result of the report is that it presents a full and complete account of the project’s final outcome.”

Revised: “The report presents a full account of the project’s outcome.”

Did you choose concrete words and terms instead of abstract ones whenever possible?

Example: “The research group structured the report in a functional manner.”

Revised: “The research group put the conclusions first and then explained how they arrived at them.”

Have you avoided technical terms your readers might not understand?

If you had to use them, did you briefly explain or define them? Did you use acronyms without first explaining their meaning? For example, did you write, Institutional Review Board (IRB)” on first mention? Did you use vague adjectives when specifics are called for?

Example: “We received numerous inquiries.”

Revised: “We received 84 inquiries.”

Is your meaning clear to the reader?

Did you write to impress or communicate clearly? It doesn’t matter whether your writing is clear to you; it must be clear to the reader.

Unclear: “Our models worked well when compared with the calculated values, which is evidenced by the percent errors.”

Revised: “As the percent errors indicate, our models worked well when compared with the calculated values.”

Unclear: “Isotopes, which were discovered in 1853, are radioactive.”

Accurate: “The isotopes that were discovered in 1853 are radioactive.”

Is your average sentence length about 17–20 words?

Unusually long sentences contain too many ideas and force readers to work harder to understand your message.

Exhausting: “In a smoke-filled room, teary eyes and runny noses occur, and auditory discrimination and visual perception are altered, which is irritating but not associated with any serious disease, except for people with heart and lung diseases who are threatened with major problems from smoke.”

Revised: “A smoke-filled room does not only cause teary eyes and runny noses. The smoke also can alter auditory and visual perception. Although the smoke itself does not produce disease, it does pose a threat to people with heart and lung ailments.”

Editing for Vigor and Pace

• You used some dynamic verbs, such as “determined,” “examined,” “synthesized,” “identified,” etc. They energize your sentences.
• Example: Change, “The experiment was productive” to “The experiment generated significant data.”

Determine if you used long nouns or phrases that can be changed to simple verbs.

Change “give consideration” to “consider” and “arrived at an agreement” to “agreed.” Look especially for nouns ending in “-tion,” “-tive,” “-ability,” “-ment,” “-able,” “-ness,” and “-ance.” Don’t overuse these.

Example: “The manager made a recommendation that new employees should be given an invitation to join the credit union.”

Revision: “The manager recommended that new employees be invited to join the credit union.”

Eliminate pesky prepositions (e.g., overusing to, of, in, on, by, with).

Example: “The decrease in profit margins is of great concern to leaders of business.”

Revision: Decreasing profit margins greatly concern business leaders.”

Did you vary the length of your sentences?

Even though your sentences should average about 17–20 words, your writing should contain some short, some medium-length, and some longer sentences to add rhythm and pace. Read your paragraphs aloud; you’ll quickly hear whether or not you’ve varied the length of your sentences and helped with readability.

Overly simple sentences: There are some drawbacks about diesel engines. Diesel engines are much noisier than standard engines. They are difficult to start in cold weather. They tend to cause considerable vibrations. They also give off an unpleasant odor. For these reasons, many car manufacturers are limiting their diesel models to light trucks only.

Revised: Diesel engines have some drawbacks. Most obvious are their noisiness, cold-weather starting difficulties, vibrations, and unpleasant odor. Therefore, many manufacturers are limiting their diesel models to light trucks.

Did you vary the beginnings of your sentences or do most of your sentences begin with the same part of speech?

Some writers, for example, start most sentences with nouns or noun phrases. Don’t. Variety adds spark. Caution: Don’t try to start each sentence with a different part of speech. Just strive for a moderate amount of variety.

Did you use the same word repeatedly throughout a paragraph?

Use synonyms to avoid repetitiveness unless reader understanding requires it.

Editing for Tone and Style

• Instead of writing, “We utilized UV light to induce Arabidopsis for mutations,” write, “We used UV light to . . . for mutations.”
• Tip: Apply the conversational test: Ask yourself if you would use the same words if you were speaking to your reader.

The Final Editing

• Remember, it doesn’t matter if what you’ve written is clear to you; it must be clear to the reader.

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How to Answer “What Are Your Strengths and Weaknesses?”

• Joel Schwartzberg

Advice and examples to help you craft an authentic answer to this common interview question.

Don’t take common interview questions lightly just because they’re predictable. Underpreparing for them can make the difference between moving ahead and moving on. One question that often comes up: What are your strengths and weaknesses? In this article, the author outlines clear steps for how to describe your strengths and weaknesses along with sample language to use as a guide.

Some questions come up again and again in job interviews . At the top of the list: “ Tell me about yourself ,” “ Why do you want to work here? ” and “What are your greatest strengths and weaknesses?”

• JS Joel Schwartzberg oversees executive communications for a major national nonprofit, is a professional presentation coach, and is the author of Get to the Point! Sharpen Your Message and Make Your Words Matter and The Language of Leadership: How to Engage and Inspire Your Team . You can find him on LinkedIn and X. TheJoelTruth

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Writing advice for small business

How to Spot 8 Weaknesses in Your Writing (and Fix Them)

by Henneke | 68 enchanting opinions, add yours? :)

U nderstand the strengths and weaknesses in your writing, and you can become your own teacher and improve your writing skills .

This article discusses how to spot and fix the following 8 writing weaknesses:

Writing strengths and weaknesses

Do you ever read your content and wonder …

Why is this not better?

But then you struggle to decide what’s actually wrong?

Being your own writing teacher can feel like a tough task.

After sweating over your draft, you need to decide what’s good and what needs improving. It’s a matter of tough love for your favorite sentences and precious words. You have to scrap sections and scrub off the dirt to communicate your message with power.

But how can you spot your writing weaknesses so you can let your words shine?

Become your own writing teacher

Remember your favorite teacher from high school?

Be as kind as she was, and tell yourself what you’re doing well already. Perhaps you write fantastic openings, or your word choice is excellent, or you share super-valuable tips and have a wealth of experience to draw from. Remember to celebrate these writing strengths.

As a good teacher, you can’t be negative about your own progress. It’s your task to spot your weaknesses, but also to encourage yourself to embrace your learning and have fun.

Want to write better? Get my best writing tips for business here > > >

• Understand what makes writing good—you can do this by creating your own swipe file
• Learn to spot the weaknesses in your writing—I’ve listed the most common weaknesses below
• Practice fixing your weaknesses—that’s how your content improves

Additional reading to become your own writing teacher:

Trying to solve all problems in one go creates a learning experience from hell.

To make learning how to write more fun, address weaknesses one by one. The list below is in order of importance.

Ready to explore?

Writing weakness #1: You’re boring your readers to tears

So, it’s easy to forget who they are, and write as if lecturing a faceless crowd.

But writing isn’t a monologue. We write to communicate with our readers. And when we write to educate, entertain and inspire, no content is boring.

How to spot whether you’re boring your readers:

If you feel bored writing your content, then this is a sign something isn’t working. Have you lost your mojo? Have you lost your connection to an (imaginary) reader?

Or perhaps you don’t know who your ideal reader is or you don’t like them?

How to turn this common weakness into a strength:

• Describe the person you’re writing for—it can be a real or imaginary person
• Write down in one sentence which specific problem your content solves

Remember, when our writing eases our reader’s pain, solves their struggles and improves their lives, our content can not be boring.

Writing weakness #2: Lack of focus

But, think about your readers … how many of them feel overwhelmed? And would they prefer one valuable tip to improve their life or an in-depth bible with all do’s and don’ts?

As writers, we often feel insecure. We think we’re not good enough . We wonder what we can do to make our content better, more valuable, and more extensive. We want to write THE definitive guide.

But the idea that longer content is always better is wrong. The task of a writer is not to be more comprehensive, but to communicate a message and inspire a reader to take action—to implement their advice or to buy a product if it’s right for them.

How to spot this weakness in your writing:

Can you distill the essence of your content in one sentence?

If you can’t, try this exercise:

• Write down in one sentence which problem your content solves
• Define in one sentence the “sunny destination” of your content: how does your content make your reader’s life better?

Remember, your content makes an impact when it makes your reader’s life better—even if the improvement is tiny.

Writing weakness #3: Lack of substance

Instead of an article sprawling out into multiple directions, focus on one specific topic and add more depth to your argument. For instance, a personal story adds depth because it can illustrate how you’ve benefited from your tips; and statistics or research results help back up your arguments.

How to spot whether your writing lacks substance:

Does your content remain abstract or superficial? Have you given examples to make your advice concrete? And if you’re writing sales copy, do you communicate both benefits and features ?

• A personal story, examples or case studies to illustrate your key point
• A metaphor to make your point crystal-clear
• Research results to back up your story with facts
• Quotes from experts or testimonials to put the spotlight on your key point
• Common mistakes your readers should avoid
• Answers to questions readers are dithering about
• Suggestions on overcoming hurdles that may block readers from implementing your advice
• Drawings or graphs to add comprehension

Remember, substance is about the depth of your arguments, not about the length of your article. It’s about the insight you offer your readers. Even an email of 100 words can have substance. A nugget of wisdom. A super-practical tip. A spark of inspiration.

To write substantial content, first find focus, then add substance.

Further reading on writing with substance:

Writing weakness #4: dodgy flow.

An easy way to think about flow is to imagine yourself having a conversation with your ideal reader. Are you taking your reader by the hand and explain a problem step by step? Does your sales page answer the questions when they come up in their mind?

A sales page often follows this structure:

• What’s this page about—what problem does your product solve?
• What exactly does the product or service do and why does it matter to buyers?
• How does it work?
• How do buyers know you’re legit?
• What exactly is the deal?
• How to buy?

If you’re unsure where to place content, ask yourself: When would my reader ask this?

Blog posts work in a similar way. Start with the most important information:

• Why would the reader care about your tips in a post? What problem does your article solve?
• How exactly do readers solve this problem?
• How do readers overcome hurdles to implement your advice?

How to spot a lack of flow in your writing:

Read your content at a decent pace to determine the flow. When you read fast enough you’re not bogged down by details and it becomes easier to grasp the big picture:

• For every section, write down which question the content answers (or alternatively, summarize in one bullet point)
• Read through the questions or bullet points—do they feel logical or can you re-arrange them in a logical order? Can you skip any sections?

Further reading on content flow:

Writing weakness #5: long-winded sentences.

My trick is to keep my sentences short.

At school, you may have been taught to write long, impressive sentences. But shorter sentences are easier to consume and make your content more accessible to all.

How to spot long-windedness in your writing:

• The Hemingway app (the online version is free) highlights long and very long sentences in your writing
• Microsoft Word provides readability stats, including your average sentence length
• Several other online tools measure readability stats, too

To reduce your average sentence length, chop the longest sentences in two or three. Communicate one tiny idea in each sentence, and ensure each sentence follows the previous one logically—don’t jump ahead as you may lose your reader.

Your aim is not to make every sentence as short as possible. That’s monotonous and tiring to read. So, vary long and short sentences, and try keeping your average sentence length to 14 words max. An occasional long or very long sentence is fine.

Further reading on writing good sentences:

Writing weakness #6: gobbledygook and jargon.

Gobbledygook is always wrong because they make your content sound hyped up. In contrast, jargon can be fine—as long as your readers understand your words.

How to spot jargon and gobbledygook in your writing:

• Would you use the word in a face-to-face conversation with your ideal reader?
• When you read out your content, does it sound like you?
• Do you write to clarify or to impress?

Gobbledygook and jargon sneak into our writing when we forget who we are, when we forget why we’re in business (to help!), and when we write for a faceless crowd rather than our favorite clients. So, imagine yourself in a cozy cafe with your favorite client, and use only the words you’d use while drinking a beer together.

Further reading on gobbledygook:

Writing weakness #7: fluff.

Fluffy words are phrases like very, actual, in my opinion, really, just . But also verbs like to make, to provide, and to add . These words are fluffy because you can’t visualize them.

When you scrap meaningless words and focus on powerful phrases , your content becomes more concise and your message becomes clearer. Like good wine, it engages all senses.

How to spot fluff in your writing:

The key trick to getting rid of fluff is counter-intuitive: Focus on meaningful words first. Then try to rewrite each sentence with as few weak phrases as possible. ( Here’s more detail about this technique )

Many words have some meaning, but aren’t particularly strong. So don’t fret too long whether a word is meaningful or not. Go with your gut feeling; it’s not an exact science.

Further reading on cutting the fluff:

Weakness #8: a bad sense of rhythm.

But readers can sense the rhythm in your writing—just like music can guide your workout rate. Even when people aren’t reading your copy aloud, they can hear its rhythm because they listen to their inner speech.

A good rhythm makes a reading experience more pleasurable.

How to spot whether your content lacks rhythm:

Read your copy aloud (or use an app to read the content to you) and listen to its rhythm—do you speed up and slow down? Do you have natural pauses?

To make your rhythm more pleasurable:

• Vary sentence length —mix long and short sentences, and try a few ultra-short sentences
• Pay attention to transition words—such as but, and, in contrast, for example —so readers go smoothly from one sentence to the next

Further reading on rhythm:

How to become your own writing teacher.

Let’s not pussyfoot around it.

Improving your own writing is a challenge.

When you don’t have a teacher to cheer you on, it’s easy to feel down and worry you’ll never be good enough.

So, remember to stop negative self-talk , and cheer yourself on instead. Your writing journey should be fun.

Focus on one weakness at a time. Start at the top of this list, and work your way down—tackle the weaknesses one by one.

Embrace your learning experience.

Treasure your writing moments.

And remember how lucky you are to have time to write and improve your skills.

Recommended reading on fixing writing weaknesses:

4 proven principles to practice your writing How pro writers create a swipe file to improve their skills The 5-step revision process to edit rough drafts

You may also like:

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Reader Interactions

Leave a comment and join the conversation cancel reply.

June 8, 2021 at 2:09 pm

Thanks for explaining the weaknesses so lucidly. I now have a clearcut idea of how to go ahead with improving my writing. It’s always a pleasure reading your thoughtful and well-written blog posts. Thanks a lot, Henneke!

June 8, 2021 at 2:59 pm

That sounds good. Happy writing, Devi!

May 7, 2020 at 3:54 pm

Fantastic information. Thanks. I needed this because I’m constantly looking for ways to improve my writing.

I’m glad this was useful, Suzana. Happy writing!

April 29, 2020 at 9:45 am

I think that emails have become the curse of the English language. They are easy to misinterpret and often suffer from the many mistakes you have identified. Why say 100 words when 10 will suffice. I found your tips very useful and they will help me to think before I press the SEND button. Thank you

April 29, 2020 at 9:51 am

Yes, email has made us lazy. So often, we dash of a quick email rather than consider why we’re sending the email and edit our writing accordingly. I’m glad you’re enjoying my tips.

March 4, 2020 at 3:43 am

Hi Henneke Enjoyed this article…very helpful and informative. Loved the tips. Keep them coming!

March 4, 2020 at 4:06 pm

Thank you, Leena. Happy writing!

February 4, 2020 at 1:15 pm

thanks for your your great and amazing tips!!!

February 4, 2020 at 1:23 pm

Happy writing, Jaqueline!

July 28, 2019 at 1:50 pm

Hey Henneke, you are such a great writer. Your articles are very helpful and easy to digest. Every single heading has meaningful insights. You sound like a polite teacher students love to learn from.

July 28, 2019 at 3:55 pm

What a lovely compliment. Thank you, Kulsoom. Happy writing!

March 28, 2019 at 2:28 am

Hi Henneke, I enjoyed reading your blog on the 8 weaknesses in your writing and how to fix them. I always felt that less was more in writing. You need to get to the point with as few words as possible, as much as possible to eliminate boredom. I will incorporate these 8 tips to help improve my writing skills.

March 28, 2019 at 4:51 pm

Thank you, David, and yes, I agree—less is more and that can feel like a tricky skill to master.

July 10, 2017 at 7:04 pm

Hi Henneke,

Epic Post. Salute to your idea..”Becoming your own writing teacher”. I can see my writing weaknesses vividly now. 🙂

There’s magic in your writing. That enriching & grounding my writing journey. I try to re-read your every post until I grasp fully. Never get bored.

Your honesty brings clarity in your writing. And allows words to shimmer. I feel it.

Loads of thanks.

July 10, 2017 at 10:34 pm

Thank you, Mehera for your lovely comment.

Happy writing!

July 7, 2017 at 5:59 pm

While I believe that I suffer from all of these, the hardest for me to identify is whether I am boring my readers or not. I tend to be able to entertain myself in my writing as I mostly write about myself! I like the idea that you can be your own writing teacher. With a little bit of time, hard work and focus we can all take away so much from this wonderfully insightful article. Thank you for sharing your expertise!

July 7, 2017 at 7:22 pm

Even when you write about yourself, you can still address your readers and think about what’s in it for them. Usually, when we write about ourselves, our readers can learn from the processes we’ve been through and the mistakes we’ve made.

Happy writing, Patrick!

July 4, 2017 at 3:21 pm

Lack of focus is what I struggle with.

I’m the one that’s always trying to come up with the definitive guide when I can easily just write one great post on one point. I’ve even been told that when I tried to submit a guest post to a site and the person suggested to focus on one main point.

Lesson learned.

Great post once again. Have a great day.

– Andrew

July 4, 2017 at 7:13 pm

Focus can feel hard to achieve, especially when we feel under pressure to write an “epic blog post” or “skyscraper content.”

A lot of people suggest we need to be definitive and write longer posts so there’s a lot of incentive to cram as much as we can into a post. I’ve been there, too.

Happy writing, Andrew. And thank you for stopping by!

July 3, 2017 at 7:07 pm

This is a really amazing post for every writer out there. Indeed, the points mention are the big reasons for weak writing. It actually helps me a lot in identifying my style of writing. Thank You, Henneke, for sharing it with us. And yes, I liked the graphics with every point.

July 4, 2017 at 5:14 pm

Thank you for your comment, Rahul. I’m glad you like both the tips and the graphics.

June 28, 2017 at 3:48 pm

Great actionable article Henneke! Lots of information to put into practice right away.

You mentioned a concern about putting too much substance is this article. A small suggestion from Backlinko – in longer articles, a table of contents with clickable links helps both with navigation and understanding the overall structure. It’s such an excellent resource, a downloadable PDF would be fantastic.

Thanks for this incredibly helpful post!

July 4, 2017 at 4:57 pm

Yes, I can see a PDF would be useful. I guess it’s just laziness on my side. I also don’t like to ask people to sign-up so they can download a PDF, so I’d only do it as an extra service to readers. Maybe I should …

I’ve thought about creating a table of contents, but I’m not quite sure I like it as it doesn’t encourage people to read the post—the items may seem random, but they follow each other in a logical order. I have used tables of contents on my content overview pages, so people can find the most relevant content for them; in such a case, I think it’s useful.

Thank you for your suggestions, Faye. Food for thought!

June 26, 2017 at 9:39 am

Hi great article. I am just starting to write a blog and this sort of information ensures I will not write a boring piece. Thank you.

June 26, 2017 at 9:35 pm

Great! Happy writing, Roger.

June 22, 2017 at 1:19 am

Lovely tips for working around fluff. Fluff is definitely a problem that, unfortunately, muddies much of the work I do. Keep it up! 🙂

June 22, 2017 at 10:52 pm

Thank you, Barry. Keep up the fight against fluff! 🙂

June 21, 2017 at 12:00 pm

You make it sound so simple and attainable. I like the part about improving step by step, you’re an encouraging teacher. Bless you, H.

June 21, 2017 at 8:51 pm

Somehow writing is both simple and hard. The principles are simple, but implementing them can feel hard and it’s easy to feel down when content doesn’t turn out like we had originally envisioned it (it still happens to me all the time).

Take it easy on your writing journey. Good writing is definitely attainable as long as we learn step by step. Happy writing!

June 21, 2017 at 9:30 am

Henneke, you continue to be my in situ writing teacher and to run my favourite writing blog! I was glued to every sentence as I’ve been searching for just this kind of advice for some time now. While I’m, on the whole, happy with my writing, I know that it needs to improve. This will definitely help me to do that.

June 21, 2017 at 8:05 pm

You made my day, Matthew. I’m so glad this was just the advice you were looking for. Happy writing, and thank you for stopping by. I appreciate it 🙂

June 21, 2017 at 6:14 am

I love this blog! After reading it, I felt like I just had a good wholesome dinner. As a newbie writer/blogger, I am going to use your tips and helps step by step to learn and grow as a writer.

And I love your drawings too!

Thanks for all the helpful information.

June 21, 2017 at 4:28 pm

Thank you so much for your lovely comment, Meralyn. I’m glad you enjoyed this post.

June 21, 2017 at 12:32 am

You are good at what you do Henneke.

This post came at the most opportune time for me. I have been having this feeling that my writing needs something fresh to enliven it. I wasn’t feeling it anymore. I hate to submit to a client something I don’t even enjoy reading myself.

And then this article pops up in my inbox. Suddenly it’s all clear. I just need to clean up my writing. Somehow I have let a lot of bad habits build up and the quality of my writing dropped as a result.

This will definitely help.

Thanks for sharing.

June 21, 2017 at 4:21 pm

It can be extra tough when you’re writing for clients and when perhaps the topics you’re writing about aren’t the ones you’d choose yourself. When I was still writing for clients, some topics seemed utterly boring at first, but by imagining who might be interested in it, I often could get more excited about a topic (and produce better content0.

Happy writing, Patrick, and thank you for stopping by.

June 20, 2017 at 9:53 pm

While I always look forward to your emails, I believe that this one is my favorite. You cover eight topics quite well, while creating the “flow” you write about. All important stuff for writers, and presented like an info feast!

Great job, Bill

June 20, 2017 at 9:57 pm

Oh my, that’s a big compliment. Thank you so much, Bill. I love your phrase “info feast.”

And silly me was worried that I had crammed too much into this post!

June 20, 2017 at 9:28 pm

Oh, wow, Henneke, I just read a post aloud to my husband the other day, because I thought he’d like it. However, the more I read, the more I did not like it! I was so shocked. It was not good. This post of yours should be just what I need to fix! Thanks so much. I’ve been a bit scared to post any more since that episode!

June 20, 2017 at 9:55 pm

Oh my, you shouldn’t be scared to post! When you read it aloud and don’t like it, try to figure out why you don’t like it and then post it.

It’s fascinating how reading something aloud can change our perspective, isn’t it?

June 21, 2017 at 4:07 am

I know. I ‘m not really scared to post, but just hesitant, not trusting my ear while I’m writing. And yes, that read-aloud moment surely taught me a thing or two! I think what’s wrong is that I am mostly a pencil writer and when I take to the keyboard, I make garbage; it’s some kind of disconnect with my core, as if my brain is writing but my heart is elsewhere. That, and I broke almost every rule you listed above! 😀 I’m going to print that yuk post, double-spaced, and attack it with a pencil while on vacation, soon, thanks to you. 🙂

June 21, 2017 at 4:27 pm

That’s an interesting point you make about “not trusting your ear while writing.” This makes me realize I don’t really trust my ear either–at least not when I am writing my first draft. I use the revision and editing phases to make the writing feel more like me—something I’m happy with.

I need to think about heart vs brain. I think it’s always a balance for me, but I’m not sure. And, of course, we’re all different in our writing process, so what works for me doesn’t necessarily work for you.

Happy revising!

June 20, 2017 at 5:41 pm

Hey Henneke,

Boredom is a big weakness! Yes it occurs when we ourselves are bored with our writing. Losing the mojo can happen to anyone. But spotting it right away to avoid the same from conquering the writing is the key.

Following a very strict pattern, or working on publishing the same type of content can cause boredom too!

Just like readers, writers do become bored with a strict pattern.

Fluff = adding water to wine. Yes!

Thanks for sharing this awesome piece 🙂

Cheers, Jane.

June 20, 2017 at 6:34 pm

Yes, so true. Everyone can lose their mojo, and it can be hard work to get it back.

Thank you for stopping buy again, Jane. I appreciate it.

June 20, 2017 at 5:36 pm

Great post, as always. 🙂

I will definitely be having all these in mind on all of my future posts.

One writing tip I love is about the word “that”. It’s totally overused. Have you noticed?

I try not to use it when it doesn’t need to be included in a sentence. For example:

Instead of this… I’m going to show you everything that you need…

You’d go with this… I’m going to show you everything you need…

It gives your writing a better flow.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to your next post. And thanks for all the advice.

Cheers, Julian

June 20, 2017 at 6:33 pm

Yes, that’s a good tip!

I cross out many “that’s” in my draft posts, but it could be that some “that’s” still sneak in 😉

Thank you for stopping by, Julian. Happy writing!

June 20, 2017 at 5:00 pm

Great Post Madam. Thanks for sharing. May God bless you.

June 20, 2017 at 6:30 pm

Thank you, Dhaya. Happy writing!

June 20, 2017 at 3:35 pm

I just looked at two drafts I did last week and I had lots of lackluster writing. I revised with your suggestions and I do believe they are better now! Thanks.

Yay! Reading this makes me happy. Thank you, Kathy.

June 20, 2017 at 2:59 pm

One thing you will never be accused of, Henneke, is a lack of substance. Your posts are always chock-full of great tips and visuals. 🙂 Thanks for another super post.

June 20, 2017 at 6:29 pm

To be honest, I was a little worried that there might be too much substance in this post, but it seemed like a useful overview so I went ahead to publish it anyway (and I’m glad I did).

Thank you for your encouragement, Cathy!

June 20, 2017 at 12:44 pm

Hey! I laughed out loud at Henrietta with the cigar doing the “sham-wow” sales pitch. 😉 I’ve been paying a lot more attention to specific detail in both my reading, writing, and teaching, and it really is a game-changer in so many ways. It differentiates the level of mastery. Thanks for all you do!

June 20, 2017 at 6:28 pm

And thank you for being you, and for being such a loyal reader and commenter.

I remember you once teaching me the word “sham-wow” 🙂

June 20, 2017 at 12:34 pm

Your articles always give me 100% boost to my skills 🙂 Consider yourself a copy doctor? You should.

June 20, 2017 at 6:26 pm

Thank you so much for your compliment, Wojtek. I appreciate it. Happy writing!

June 20, 2017 at 12:17 pm

Before this landed in my inbox, I had been swirling in my pits of misery and doom, thinking why I ever thought I could write. Your post is not only timely, but amazing! Thank you so much for telling us to knock of the negativity, pull up our socks and work on our weaknesses.

Great tips 😀

Much love from India!

Oh my, I’m sorry you were swirling in pits of misery and doom.

Learning to write can feel like a lonely struggle. Please don’t give up, Vinita, and celebrate your successes—congratulate yourself for each a piece of writing you finish. Happy writing!

June 20, 2017 at 12:13 pm

You couldn’t say it better, if I enjoy writing, my readers will enjoy reading- what an awesome test. And, also, here onwards, I commit to focus on writing only and only to clarify and not to impress.

June 20, 2017 at 6:23 pm

Happy writing, Hena. Thank you for your lovely comment. I like your commitment to writing for clarity, not to impress. 🙂

June 20, 2017 at 12:03 pm

Hi Henneke, brilliant article. You give so much.

I know I probably sound ridiculously lazy, but this is all so much work. I love the idea of deliberate practice, but find it almost impossible to set myself the problems, so I can practice later. Why is there no app for deliberate practice for writers? Surely I can’t be the only one that would be happy to pay for such a thing.

June 20, 2017 at 6:22 pm

It doesn’t sound lazy at all, we all have to set our own priorities and we can’t do everything. You’re absolutely right: writing and improving our writing skills IS a lot of work. It’s just like with learning to play the piano or tennis—you have to practice a lot.

June 20, 2017 at 12:01 pm

Hi Henneke! 🙂

Missed your posts, and this one is a beauty! I think I now need to rearrange my list of top 3 of your favorite posts. Super useful and actionable, and I love the drawings, too (I didn’t know Henrietta smoked cigars! ;D)

Can’t wait to spread the word!

June 20, 2017 at 6:20 pm

Thank you so much, Gill. I’m glad you like this one 🙂 In your top 3 of my posts? That’s a big compliment!

PS Henrietta seems to only smoke cigars when she’s impersonating a sleazy sales person 😉

June 20, 2017 at 11:58 am

What an insightful post. I make all of these mistakes and until you pointed them out I was probably unaware – thanks. The last one was quite surprising but logical. I will pay more attention to that in the future.

Also, this trick for the overused words and sentences made me laugh out loud “Would you use the word in a face-to-face conversation with your ideal reader?”.

June 20, 2017 at 6:19 pm

It sounds like you could perhaps be a bit kinder to yourself and more upbeat about your writing skills? You’re publishing your first book!

June 20, 2017 at 6:27 pm

hahahah yes! This cracked me up, it’s something my sister would say to me in that tone. Also, I am writing a personalized email with lots of sugar to my backers so expect a “dessert” in your inbox soon 😉

June 20, 2017 at 6:31 pm

I’m looking forward to dessert 🙂

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Microsoft 365 Life Hacks > Writing > The pros and cons of the five-paragraph essay

The pros and cons of the five-paragraph essay

The five-paragraph essay is a writing structure typically taught in high school. Structurally, it consists of an introductory paragraph, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion. This clear structure helps students connect points into a succinct argument. It’s a great introductory structure, but only using this writing formula has its limitations.

What is a five-paragraph essay?

Outside of the self-titled structure, the five-paragraph essay has additional rules. To start, your introductory paragraph should include a hook to captivate your audience. It should also introduce your thesis , or the argument you are proving. The thesis should be one sentence, conclude your introductory paragraph, and include supporting points. These points will become the body of your essay. The body paragraphs should introduce a specific point, include examples and supporting information, and then conclude. This process is repeated until you reach the fifth concluding paragraph, in which you summarize your essay.

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The benefits of a five-paragraph essay

• Your ideas are clear. Presenting your ideas in a succinct, organized manner makes them easy to understand and the five-paragraph essay is designed for that. It provides a clear outline to follow. And most importantly, it’s organized around the thesis, so the argument can be traced from the beginning of the essay to its conclusion. When learning how to write essays, losing track of your thesis can be a common mistake. By using this structure, it’s harder to go on tangents. Each of your points are condensed into a single paragraph. If you struggle presenting your ideas, following this structure might be your best bet.
• It’s simple. Creating an essay structure takes additional brainpower and time to craft. If an essay is timed in an exam, relying on this method is helpful. You can quickly convey your ideas so you can spend more time writing and less structuring your essay.
• It helps build your writing skills. If you’re new to writing essays, this is a great tool. Since the structure is taken care of, you can practice writing and build your skills. Learn more writing tips to improve your essays.

The cons of writing a five-paragraph essay

• The structure is rigid. Depending on its usage, the structure and convention of the five paragraphs can make creating an essay easier to understand and write. However, for writing outside of a traditional high school essay, this format can be limiting. To illustrate points creatively, you might want to create a different structure to illustrate your argument.
• Writing becomes repetitive. This format quickly becomes repetitive. Moving from body-to-body paragraph using the same rules and format creates a predictable rhythm. Reading this predictable format can become dull. And if you’re writing for a college professor, they will want you to showcase creativity in your writing. Try using a different essay structure to make your writing more interesting
• Lack of transitions. Quickly moving through ideas in a five-paragraph structure essay doesn’t always leave room for transitions. The structure is too succinct. Each paragraph only leaves enough space for a writer to broadly delve into an idea and then move onto the next. In longer essays, you can use additional paragraphs to connect ideas. Without transitions, essays in this format can feel choppy, as each point is detached from the previous one
• Its rules can feel unnecessary. Breaking your essay into three body paragraphs keeps it concise. But is three the perfect number of body paragraphs? Some arguments might need more support than three points to substantiate them. Limiting your argument to three points can weaken its credibility and can feel arbitrary for a writer to stick to.

Creating essays using the five-paragraph structure is situational. Use your best judgement to decide when to take advantage of this essay formula. If you’re writing on a computer with Microsoft Word , try using Microsoft Editor to edit your essay.

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Strengths & Weaknesses Essay Samples

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My diverse upbringing and career choices have provided me with a broad skill set that I intend to further cultivate in business school. My analytical and interpersonal skills have been integral to my success, and I aim to further enhance these skills while also honing my leadership abilities at Kenan-Flagler.

Analytical skills are instrumental in my role as a planner at Fossil Inc where I combine historical sales metrics with current trends to forecast sales opportunities and maximize sales potential nation-wide. Working on a tight budget, I scrutinize sales and inventory reports to make the most accurate allocation and purchasing decisions. My precision in forecasting has led my team to achieve the most productive product assortment of any Fossil merchandise category. Most recently, I architected the Holiday 2010 Sunwear assortment purchase for North American stores by determining which silhouettes sold best in different geographies and which price points were the most effective in certain regions. For instance, large round shaped frames are not as productive in many west coast and Hawaii stores as these shapes do not fit Asian faces as well. Also, customers are less price-sensitive in Las Vegas and New York, as most of the customer base is tourists who are willing to pay higher prices. Because of my precise analysis of purchasing trends, I created a highly accurate assortment purchase and led my team to achieve same-store comparative sales of +6% in October, a result that had not been reached in over 14 months.

Interpersonal skills have also driven my career success to date. When working with the international planning department, I was quickly recognized for these skills and was selected to serve as an ambassador to our international counterparts when they visited the corporate headquarters, directing them to meetings and organizing break-out sessions with the individual planning groups. Due in part to my strong interpersonal abilities, I was moved to the domestic planning team where I have relished the challenge of more corporate and executive exposure. I quickly became the contact person within the stores planning department for the entire Sunwear business, partnering with our wholesale teams to discuss best practices and sales drivers.

While I have also been recognized for my leadership skills, leadership is a strength I intend to leverage in the future as I progress up the management ranks. Recently at Fossil, I assumed an ad-hoc leadership role on my team and was selected to be the new store coordinator based on my performance. Organizing meetings, communicating critical milestones and ensuring flawless execution of product delivery, I have led the store planning team in the opening of 18 new global sites in 2010 and will lay the framework to open an additional 50 sites in 2011. At Kenan-Flagler, I plan to continue my leadership development by assuming the role of team leader on a STAR team, where I will gain unmatched real world and leadership experience and skills. I also intend to leverage the “continuous learning cycle” method and the leadership development program at Kenan-Flagler to evolve into a recognized leader in my newly launched career.

?Leadership ability is one of my greatest strengths. The most vivid example of this ability was my role spearheading the move of our $3 billion Wealth Management business from Matstone to GTR amid the chaotic financial system meltdown and the collapse of our firm in 2008. My attention to detail, organization, and capacity to adapt quickly resulted in significant progress, but it was my ability to effectively delegate responsibilities and empower team members that enabled us to be successful. As a leader, my open-minded, results-driven style made me more productive and respected and I used feedback from my team to make effective changes in my management style. My versatility and self-awareness elicited a positive response from my team members, which was reflected in their attitudes and in the quality of their work. The end result: today we operate as one of the largest and most successful teams at GTR.

Another area of strength is my communication skills, which are essential to building and fostering relationships in the financial services industry. The dynamic interrelationships of markets and the growing complexity of financial products regularly exceed clients’ levels of sophistication and it is my job to interpret and explain these investments in a language they can easily understand. During Matstone’s bankruptcy, I interacted in person and over the phone with our panicked clients to comfort and reassure them we were actively seeking the most accurate information and consistently looking out for their best interests.

An additional strength is my ability to think analytically across a wide spectrum of interrelated disciplines, from trading to developing investment solutions, to estate planning and operations. In Wealth Management, decision-making occurs in real-time and requires the ability to proactively synthesize large amounts of information and react accordingly. I earned the CFA designation in 2008 to further develop my analytical skills and it is this critical thinking ability that has drawn clients to seek my advice and perspective, adding value to our team and to GTR. I look forward to leveraging my creative and teambuilding skills while capitalizing on the diverse curriculum offered at Kenan-Flagler. The STAR program, for example, will provide me with an entrée into the consulting field and the opportunity to work collaboratively with students and global business leaders, turning real world business challenges into profitable business solutions. As a varsity “athlete” at Kenan-Flagler, I am also eager to utilize these skills as an active participant in case competitions, leading my team to a first place finish over Duke University in the “Battle of the Blues.”

Philanthropy is also an integral part of my life and I intend to leverage my extensive non-profit leadership experience while continuing my commitment to community service at Kenan-Flagler. As a leader of the Kenan-Flagler Habitat for Humanity Project, an organization for which I have done extensive work, I can contribute to an MBA culture that exemplifies a positive impact on society and supports leadership development on campus and in the UNC-Chapel Hill community.

I define myself as a person with strong values, intelligence, passion and perseverance, who is committed to making a difference in her country and her region. These qualities were instilled in me at an early age by my family and my environment.

My father’s death when I was one year old changed my life significantly. To cover her grief, my mother put her focus on my education during my pre-school years. Through her commitment I entered school directly into the second grade and since then, I have succeeded in doing many things earlier in life. Although, at times I was put in situations I was not really prepared for, including entering university as a precocious age of 15 years old, on the whole, I have matured faster than people my age, built a strong character to overcome challenges, and become self-confident. These qualities have helped me achieve success both personally and professionally: I was a top performer in my marketing career in three international companies; I lived and thrived in three different foreign countries; and most recently, I started my own venture.

My mother also instilled in me a strong moral character. That strength, coupled with my problem solving skills, makes me a good leader; I have led teams successfully in diverse situations with different leadership styles, from an intellectual style based on data-driven decision-making and strong analytical thinking, to a more participative style, requesting ideas and fostering teamwork. I am aware of my weaknesses too: I am impatient, it is difficult for me to deal with ambiguity, and sometimes I react quickly and emotionally. To overcome these weaknesses, I keep a log of the situations that trigger them so I will be more careful in the future. I also seek out coaching from people who are strong in these areas, and read relevant self-help materials.

Starting my own venture helped me further develop perseverance and overcome my impatience. Launching my company was very difficult because I lacked a network in Chile, knowledge of the country, and experience starting a business. However, with perseverance and creativity I learned how to make an impact and provide a compelling offer to local companies, I also learned how to absorb negative answers and deal with adversity. After the success of my first project, people learned about my good service and my business is now well positioned.

Perhaps the most important aspects of my upbringing in Canada was seeing the difficulties poor people face first-hand. I am aware of the advantages I have received, and I am passionate and committed to improve the quality of life of all North Americans.

One of John’ greatest strengths is his personal drive. Even though he has a full workload, often requiring weekend work, he requested authority to hire and manage an intern this year too. Though it added to his work-load, John felt that an internship program would give us an opportunity to develop talented young people for future positions, while providing local students with the experience they need in today’s competitive job market. John has also taken this opportunity to build on his own management and delegation skills. However, drive alone does not translate into high performance. John is extremely intelligent; he grasps and synthesizes complex concepts quickly. I can think of numerous instances where I explained a complicated accounting concept to John, and he quickly demonstrated a firm understanding and incorporated it into a financial model. Also, John stands out among his peers for his work ethic. We can always count on him to take on extra projects with immediate deadlines. It is never necessary to ask John to stay late or put in extra time as he takes the initiate to put in whatever it takes. Moreover, he completes these extra projects by the deadlines every time, while continuing to complete his standard duties in a timely manner as well. Finally, John is committed to giving back. He places a high priority on contributing his time to help Oregon State students. Additionally, he coaches the varsity girls’ volleyball team at a local high school.

The Library Foundation’s (TLF) motto reads that “the love of learning is the guide of life.” I have always lived my life to this effect, majoring in History and studying and travelling abroad whenever possible. Desiring to give back and inspire others to follow their own love of learning, I became involved in TLF, initially through fundraising and later through a program called The Upper School Awards, whose proceeds go towards scholarships for local, underprivileged students. I volunteered to co-chair the awards committee and read through each application. I was honored to present these awards to the recipients in a ceremony at the TLF headquarters.

Following this effort, I further collaborated with a TLF Board member to spearhead a Fundraising Committee, not only to continue raising money for the Upper School Awards, but also to fundraise for member events and speaker series, and eventually launch a small endowment. We created a proposal and presented to the Board, discussing the reasons why we felt this committee would be fruitful to TLF, our monetary goals for the year and specifics as to how we planned to raise money through donations and special events. The Board ultimately voted in favor of the Committee and members of the association recognized my dedication to the organization and its cause; as a result, I was elected to become the youngest Executive Committee Member on TLF’s Board.

Through this experience I learned that I am adaptable. When asked to co-chair the High School Awards committee, while I did not have direct experience in education, I used my analytical skills and love of learning to select three well-qualified individuals for scholarships. I also learned that I am skilled at communicating effectively not only in the corporate world, but in the non-profit world as well. For instance, I determined it would be worthwhile to invest our limited funds to generate a small return. While other board members had suggested this to no avail in the past, I performed my own due diligence and clearly communicated my findings in layman’s terms to the Board, which ultimately signed off.

Through this experience I also learned that I could be impatient when others are resistant to change, as was the case when I suggested investing our funds. Ultimately, I was successful in this pursuit. However, next time I will approach impatience as an opportunity to find a useful solution, rather than a hindrance in accomplishing a goal. Additionally, I learned that I have difficulty accepting that a non-corporate environment could have a different pace, and there weren’t necessarily the same kinds of experts to which I was accustomed. I am learning to adjust my expectations and in turn take advantage of learning about concepts in non-profits with which I am unfamiliar.

I hope to continue following my love of learning by pursuing an MBA at Tuck. In doing so I am confident I will bring the same enthusiasm for teamwork, adaptability and effective communication as I did to TLF.

I am a leader, and I would like to emphasize a few characteristics I have found to be especially important in terms of my leadership skills. In my opinion, the biggest challenge of leadership is taking responsibility rather than assigning it. I’ve always taken responsibility. For me, personal example is not a slogan, but a regular practice. I believe that a real leader is someone with full integrity and high moral standards and all my life I have striven to keep the highest standards in my personal and professional lives.

I am a very open minded person. While I believe in myself, I am also highly self-critical. My gift, as a journalist, has been to interact with a lot of people who are smarter and more experienced than me. I believe I am a quick learner and for me, criticism is a means of self-improvement. I must admit that I make many mistakes, but I try not to repeat them and to understand what went wrong in order to improve in the future.

I’m a man of action and not a man of words. I know that this statement sounds funny coming from a journalist, but I truly believe first in action. The Jewish leadership includes two items: responsibility and action. A Jewish leader is judged on his deeds, rather than his words.

I tend to make difficult decisions on my own, rather than reaching out for help. This is an advantage when the process requires speed and decisiveness, but I believe that I need to be more open to discussion and that is something I have been focused on improving. I am a very curious individual; over the years I’ve gained an extremely large base of knowledge, but I acknowledge that I lack international exposure as someone who has never been away from my home for more than 4 months. I’m also aware that I don’t have the broad base of knowledge required of a 21st century global manager. I believe studying at HBS could help to address these weaknesses.

Lastly, I am an ambitious and determined individual. My efforts are to keep those characteristics in balance so they will be strengths and not weaknesses. A thorough understanding of personality brings me to the conclusion that balance is the key differentiating factor between strengths and weaknesses. Most characteristics are neutral in nature and the way that you use them determines whether they become a weakness or a strength.

Since an early age, balance has played a critical role in my personal growth. I define balance as embracing new activities and perspectives that challenge me, broaden my worldview, and ultimately allow me to enrich my work environments and communities. Consciously maintaining a balance in all elements of my life has trained me to be versatile and has helped me develop numerous strengths. My team leadership and adaptability skills have grown most under this philosophy.

My life-long passion for team sports culminated in a leadership role as a member of Colgate’s Division I lacrosse team. Although I was not the most physically gifted athlete, I compensated for my lack of innate skill with a dedicated work ethic, uncompromising team loyalty, and strong performance under pressure. A consummate student, my experiences during the first years on the team taught me that the most effective leadership style requires a mix of leading by example and leading by instruction. Recognizing that I was developing these attributes, our coach selected me as captain my senior year. In turn, I leveraged this strength to help lead the team to the Patriot League regular season title.

Subsequently, I have applied the team leadership skills developed on the field to my career, where I have led several teams. Most recently, I partnered with the Global Head of a new sales team at AllianceBernstein to execute the strategic direction of the company. In this role, I have collaborated with multiple levels of stakeholders to determine that we should shift the firm’s sales strategy from one focused on equity products to one oriented towards alternative investments.

Although I have been successful in my post-collegiate career, my career alone does not define me. I am deeply involved in several non-work activities, adapting to each activity’s demands in order to meaningfully contribute. In particular, I embrace and thrive in a diversity of environments. To maintain ties to nature, I annually climb fourteen-thousand foot mountains in my native state, Colorado. To maintain ties to team sports, I captain a club lacrosse team and race for a cycling team in New York. To maintain ties to the arts community, I supportively patronize emerging artists and am a young member of the MET. My most meaningful non-career activity, however, has been my work with two philanthropic organizations in New York: the Fresh Air Fund and Year-Up. Each group supports at-risk urban youth from New York’s five boroughs. My involvement has been balanced between ground level support, tutoring Fresh Air Fund students and mentoring Year-Up participants, and fundraising support, ensuring the organizations have resources to achieve their goals.

While my adaptability and team leadership skills will allow me to immediately contribute to the MBA program, I believe my perspective on seeking balance is the strength that will enable me to truly enrich the McCombs community. I plan to share my experiences and skills with fellow students while leveraging the full resources of the school to gain not merely a degree, but a broadening educational experience.

Living in Malaysia was a defining moment in my life. I attended an international school where I developed an appreciation for diversity as I interacted with people from countless countries and societies. My experiences living and traveling abroad also shaped many life choices I made going forward. I chose to attend Tufts University because of its diverse population, international relations coursework, and extensive study abroad opportunities.

These international experiences have been beneficial thus far in my career, namely in working with global teams at Fossil. These skills will also be an asset to the McCombs community, enabling me to effectively work with diverse classmates on team assignments and club activities. My understanding of other cultures will help me relate to my international peers, serving as a link, when needed, between international and domestic students. While at McCombs, I plan to be an active member of the International MBA Student Association and Graduate Marketing Network. I believe that the purpose and team building on which these associations are built are fundamental components to both a well-rounded MBA experience and an extensive global perspective.

Living abroad also instilled a desire to give back to my community. My family participated in a number of company-organized community outreach events in Malaysia, inspiring me to serve my community since. After college, I decided to focus my efforts on two organizations where I feel I make a substantial impact: Vickery Meadow Learning Center, an ESL center in an impoverished neighborhood, and Attitudes and Attire, a women’s outreach program. My work with both organizations involves helping diverse people turn their lives around, whether it is through teaching English or offering job interview advice. These are highly rewarding experiences as evidenced by my long-standing tenure at each. I strive to hold a leadership role in the Net Impact Student Club, and leverage my business knowledge to help solve social issues in the Austin community. I also plan on making an impact on the Net Impact Club and McCombs community by proposing new local organizations, namely ESL centers, so that my peers can experience their inspiring nature and create personal relationships with the greater Austin community.

I also believe that my retail industry experience will add richness to classroom discussions, and my knowledge of trend identification, strategic data analysis and sales forecasting will be valuable for case studies. Furthermore, because of the entrepreneurial spirit at Fossil, I have sharpened my persuasion skills, as I often propose visual statements or other initiatives to the executive team.

Both my diverse upbringing and retail industry background will bring a fresh perspective to the McCombs classroom and community. Moreover, my involvement in the McCombs community will not end at graduation; I plan on being a dynamic member of my local McCombs alumni chapter. Exposure to diversity and investment in the community are key initiatives in my life, and I intend to make a significant impact at McCombs, both as a student and an alumna.

?One way I’ll enrich the McCombs community during my two years in the program will be by sharing my passion for community service. Giving back is incredibly important to me for a number of reasons, most prevalently because there were times in my youth when my family was on the receiving end of charitable giving. That experience left me with a deep and unwavering commitment to the people and organizations that help families through hard times. I’ll be eager to share this passion by challenging my fellow students to use their unique skills and knowledge to improve the lives of less fortunate people. At McCombs I’ll look to bring my experience as a Life Circuit board member to the Board Fellows program and will work with Net Impact to organize a student trek aimed at meeting and evaluating successful nonprofits in an effort to share best practices and strategy with local nonprofits.

Another way I’ll enrich the McCombs community is by bringing a unique, creative perspective, both inside and outside the classroom. Since graduating with a degree in creative writing, I’ve continually found ways to apply the creative processes I refined in college to problems and opportunities in business. When the Life Circuit faced the inherent challenge of maintaining long-term communication with the homeless youths on the street, I developed an outreach program that relied on social networks, public library computers and a small but spirited troop of volunteers. When LOCO converted to a new data management system, I developed alternative uses for the program that significantly improved my team’s data mining efficiency. At McCombs, I’ll continue to deliver creative solutions and ideas, specifically in terms of innovative approaches to economic development and social capital management.

I’ll also enrich the McCombs community by sharing my passion for health and wellness. Living an active lifestyle became an important part of my life a few years ago when I set out to compete in an Ironman Triathlon, which is a 140.6 mile race composed of a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, and a full 26.2 mile marathon. I had never been much of a runner or biker, let alone an endurance athlete, so the experience was a transformative process. My goal was to go from “everyman” to “Ironman”, and after roughly eight months and over 700 hours of training, I was able to do just that. Going through that transformation motivated me to help others live healthy lifestyles. Now I’m passionate about creating inroads to wellness for novices like me and I write about these efforts on my blog. We all live busy lives and often experience fitness in waves of motivation. However, I have a core belief that when it comes to wellness, a small effort goes a long way and we are all much closer to a healthy life than we realize. Through student clubs, forums, and launching events such as fitness themed fundraisers for nonprofits, I’ll spread this philosophy and passion at McCombs, where I expect to find many students eagerly trying to maintain balance between work, school and personal health.

My first major project as the new store coordinator was arguably one of the largest milestones in Fossil Inc.’s history. A local Fossil Clothing concept store was undergoing a major transformation. The re-opening of this store marked the first full-fledged “lifestyle brand” site, and all corporate staff members, both domestic and global, were eyeing the implementation of this project closely. With the annual proforma rising by 200% and an unparalleled amount of money being spent on the state of the art light fixtures, wall displays, and check-out counter, this site was a very expensive testing ground and astonishing results were anticipated. The execution of this new store opening had to be airtight, and I was determined to deliver tremendous results. When I was presented with the responsibility of launching the new lifestyle brand location, I immediately took action. In order to effectively communicate critical information to my team, I needed to understand the vital tasks involved in a successful store opening. I began attending team meetings with the various departments involved in the new store process, compiled each team’s key objectives and timelines, and kept all team members updated on project progress via email and meetings. In order to balance my new leadership role and my everyday job duties, I knew serious process changes had to be made or I would find myself living at the office.

To ensure the successful execution of this project in the most efficient manner, I established new communication strategies. I created an unprecedented template that displayed the most critical projects pending completion from each team. Amended weekly and distributed to all departments, this template helped all teams involved plan and coordinate tasks better with other teams. I also arranged for the store manager to visit the corporate office, so that my team could field any merchandise questions and explain the financial objectives that needed to be met.

Two weeks prior to the store opening, I received word that the Board of Directors wished to view the space in its completed form the day before the official re-opening. To fill any inventory gaps, I enlisted the support of our wholesale and ecommerce partners. The evening before the Board visit, there were still some key items pending delivery, so I arranged a hand-carry of merchandise from the warehouse to the store and helped with last minute aesthetic touch-ups.

The presentation of the new lifestyle brand location to the Board was a huge success for all teams involved, not to mention critical in my leadership development. I needed to make a solid impression on my colleagues in order for them to fully trust my leadership and organizational skills in my new role. After the project reached completion, I was applauded by my peers for my embodiment of two of Fossil’s Core Values: “Be Resourceful,” and “Be Relentless.”

In reflecting on this experience, I initially found myself struggling with time management, working late hours and inefficiently juggling the two responsibilities. Thus I learned the power of communication in leadership and developed new communication documents and a hands-on approach to correspond with the field team. I not only streamlined my communication to all teams, but was also applauded for my entrepreneurial and resourceful abilities.

Moreover, my experience during this project taught me the ability to think strategically under pressure and take the necessary measures to react to challenges with confidence and positivity. In doing so, I demonstrated my relentless attitude and secured the confidence of my colleagues from my quick, yet calculated response to providing a seamless early viewing of the store to our Board. The store remodel was a huge accomplishment for both the Fossil brand and me. The store has far exceeded financial expectations, and since then, I have played a large role in the successful execution of 18 global Fossil sites in 2010 and will lay the critical framework to open another 50 sites in 2011. ?

My team at Knoxland manages LOCO’s international trade operations. In early 2010, I led a project that became a defining leadership experience in that it challenged my quantitative and analytical abilities, as well as my ability to inspire innovation while managing a group of my peers.

After a long-term review of an ongoing operational problem, I presented a plan to management aimed at reducing LOCO’s risk exposure and operational costs. I asserted I could lead a small cross-functional team to analyze trade flow at boutique brokers and ultimately reduce trade risk and costs by developing customized data management solutions to meet the unique needs of broker-dealers in small and emerging markets.

Once management consented, I began the work of executing the plan. I outlined the project with colleagues from different business units, emphasizing the value it would create for our client. I gained the support of foreign broker representatives by highlighting the benefits they’d see through an improved system. And eventually, once all parties were on-board, I led the cross-functional team to orchestrate the technology review and data customization process.

The plan relied on extensive collaboration between operations specialists and IT teams from firms around the world. As project manager I managed deadlines, set goals, mediated conflicts and guided overall strategy. But the more rewarding aspects of the project centered on training my team to address problems creatively.

Each boutique broker presented a different set of technological and operational limitations. By helping my team develop unorthodox and nonstandard solutions, we overcame each broker’s unique set of challenges. I did this by empowering my team to allocate resources and time towards exploring ideas and alternative approaches to longstanding processes.

When the project was complete, LOCO’s risk exposure and operational costs were reduced and an array of longstanding problems resolved. I was pleased to have created added value for our client and proud to have left a lasting footprint on the methods my colleagues now employ when approaching operational problems and solutions.

The experience gave me a great deal of valuable insight into my strengths and weaknesses as a leader. I reaffirmed that effective communication is a key leadership skill and one that demands constant attention. Had I not successfully persuaded managers across a number of departments that the project would strengthen our client relationship, I wouldn’t have had the cross-functional support needed to carry out the project. By highlighting how the project’s success could regularly be quantified and how it would serve the ongoing mission of our division, I was able to get the project off the ground.

Another personal take-away from the experience is that I thrive in a team setting, in part, because I lead by building consensus and advocating collaboration. During each stage of the project, from the initial planning through the final stages, I made it a point to gather feedback from each member in the group in terms of how they felt we should move forward. This was especially helpful since the team was cross-functional and few of us had detailed insight into the challenges each department would face, but it was also helpful because when it came time to execute the plan, each member had a strong sense of ownership in our approach. One personal weakness that surfaced during the project was my inexperience managing direct reports. I learned I tend to rely on collaborative, consensus-building leadership because I have room to grow as a “directive” leader. While I expect leadership via collaboration to be a constant and vital aspect to any MBA program, to be a successful CEO I’ll need to be proficient leading a team of subordinates in a non-restrictive, non-authoritarian manner. I want my direct reports to thrive, personally and professionally. As a result, part of my MBA experience will be about exploring opportunities to develop my personal “directive” leadership style, such as holding leadership positions in various clubs, soliciting feedback from students and faculty, and through specific leadership classes such as Leading People and Organizations and Creating and Managing Human Capital.

It was June of 2005. I had just completed three long years of flight training and was on my way to my first operational squadron. I couldn’t wait to get there, start learning how to tactically employ the F-18, and go on my first deployment. After all, the war on terror was raging and that is why I had signed up three years earlier. But when I arrived, I found out there would be one more detour. I was immediately sent for three weeks to the Naval Legal Justice School where I received a crash course on the Uniformed Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), the laws that regulate behavior in the Armed Forces. After the training, my first job in the squadron would be Legal Officer. A Legal Officer handles administrative paperwork, investigates alleged violations, gathers evidence, and advises the Commanding Officer (CO) on how to best deal with sailors who have found themselves at odds with the law — specifically, what punishments could and could not be legally rendered. I initially thought the job would be no big deal — a few weeks of training and then an hour or two a day dealing with legal matters. I could not have been more wrong.

To begin with, I quickly realized that law school is three years, and not three weeks, for a very good reason. There was simply more to learn than you possibly could in three weeks. Plus, up to that point in my career, I had only been in flight school where my sole responsibility was learning to fly. Now, one month into my first operational tour, not only was I overwhelmed by the new tactics I was expected to learn and execute in the airplane, but I also had a completely different set of skills to master.

Second, it became readily apparent that being the Legal Officer entailed a lot more face time with the CO than most brand new officers were comfortable with, including me. Because violating an accused sailor’s rights can cost a CO his job, he took a great interest in mine. In fact, every time he asked me a question, he wanted the answer yesterday. I also learned that the CO had spent twenty years in the Navy waiting for his chance to be in charge, so he didn’t like being told that he couldn’t do something. While he was very knowledgeable on the inner workings of the Navy, he was unfamiliar with the rules of the UCMJ. So, as the newest member of the squadron, I had the precarious task of advising the boss on what he could do and, on occasion, telling him what he couldn’t.

My initial thought was the squadron made a mistake; someone of my rank and experience should not be given this much responsibility. After I let the overwhelmed feeling sink in, I had to step back and evaluate the situation. What weaknesses were preventing me from doing an outstanding job? I realized I had to get organized, both with my time and study management. Like it or not, I now had two very important jobs to learn. Second, I had to be more assertive when speaking to authority. I had the knack for analyzing a situation and developing a strategy; I just needed to develop my communication skills so that I could effectively convey those options to the CO without negatively affecting my career. By putting these realizations into action, I became more comfortable in my role and over time I even began to enjoy the job. About a month before I was relieved by a new Legal Officer, the CO approached me at a squadron social function. He put his hand on my shoulder, looked me in the eye and said, “Wanted you to know that you’ve done a great job,” the ultimate compliment for a new officer.

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Home — Essay Samples — Life — Personal Strengths — A Narrative of My Strengths and Weaknesses

A Narrative of My Strengths and Weaknesses

• Categories: Personal Strengths Self Identity Weakness

About this sample

Words: 903 |

Updated: 30 November, 2023

Words: 903 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

Works Cited

• Alleyne, P., & Cohen, D. (2013). Identifying strengths and weaknesses in students' learning. In P. Alleyne & D. Cohen (Eds.), Psychology for Cambridge International AS & A Level (pp. 26-27). Oxford University Press.
• Buckingham, M., & Clifton, D. O. (2001). Now, discover your strengths. Free Press.
• Clifton, D. O., & Harter, J. K. (2003). Investing in strengths. In K. S. Cameron, J. E. Dutton, & R. E. Quinn (Eds.), Positive organizational scholarship: Foundations of a new discipline (pp. 111-121). Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
• Gallagher, M. W., & Lopez, S. J. (2009). Positive psychology and personality assessment: A model for understanding strengths and virtues. Oxford University Press.
• Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ. Bantam.
• Johnson, A. (2019). Building strengths and eliminating weaknesses: A constructive approach to talent development. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Psychology.
• Linley, P. A., Willars, J., & Biswas-Diener, R. (2010). The strengths book: Be confident, be successful, and enjoy better relationships by realising the best of you. CAPP Press.
• Lopez, S. J., & Louis, M. C. (2009). The principles of strengths-based education. Journal of College and Character, 10(4), 1-10.
• Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2004). Character strengths and virtues: A handbook and classification. Oxford University Press.
• Rapp, A. L., & Gosling, S. D. (2013). Strengths and weaknesses of personality tests and their implications for contemporary personality psychology. In J. A. Hall & M. S. Scher (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of personality and individual differences (pp. 8-26). SAGE Publications.

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Essay on My Strengths And Weaknesses

Students are often asked to write an essay on My Strengths And Weaknesses in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on My Strengths And Weaknesses

My strengths.

Everyone has things they are good at. My strengths are being kind, working hard, and learning quickly. I like to help friends and always do my best in school. When I get new lessons, I understand them fast. This helps me do well in class.

My Weaknesses

But, I also have things I’m not so good at. I sometimes worry too much, which can make me feel stressed. Also, I get shy around people I don’t know, making it hard to make new friends. I’m working to get better at these things.

250 Words Essay on My Strengths And Weaknesses

Introduction to my strengths and weaknesses.

Everyone has things they are good at and things they are not so good at. These are called strengths and weaknesses. Knowing what these are can help us get better and feel proud of what we can do.

My Good Points

I have a few strong points that help me in school and with friends. One of my best strengths is being kind to everyone. I like to share and make sure no one feels left out. I am also really good at reading. I can understand stories and learn new words quickly. Being organized is another strength. I keep my things tidy, so I don’t lose them, and it helps me do my homework on time.

Things I’m Working On

Just like everyone, I have some weak points too. I find math hard sometimes. Numbers and formulas can be confusing, and I need more practice to get better. Another weakness is that I am shy. Speaking in front of the class makes me nervous, and I am quiet when I meet new people. I am also not very good at sports. I am not as fast as the other kids, and I don’t catch the ball very well.

In the end, knowing my strengths and weaknesses is important. It shows me what I am good at, like being kind and organized. It also shows me what I need to work on, like math and speaking up. By understanding these things, I can try to become better every day.

500 Words Essay on My Strengths And Weaknesses

Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses. It’s like having a bag of tools that we use to handle different situations in life. My strengths are the tools I use the most, and they help me do things well. My weaknesses are like the tools I don’t use often because I might not be very good at using them. Let’s talk about what some of these are for me.

One of my big strengths is being a good listener. When my friends talk to me, I pay close attention to what they are saying. This makes them feel important and cared for. Another strength I have is being organized. I keep my school work and toys in order, so I know where everything is when I need it. This helps me save time and stay calm because I’m not looking for things at the last minute.

I’m also pretty good at learning new things. When I get interested in a topic, I read a lot about it and try to understand as much as I can. This curiosity makes school more fun because I like finding out new facts and ideas. Lastly, I’m kind to others. I believe that being nice to people is important, and it makes me happy to see others smile when I help them.

Now, for my weaknesses. Sometimes, I can be shy, especially around new people. It takes me a while to feel comfortable enough to talk a lot with someone I just met. This can make it hard for me to make new friends quickly. I’m also not very good at sports. I can be clumsy, and I don’t catch or throw balls very well, which makes team games a bit tough for me.

Another weakness is that I get frustrated when things don’t go the way I planned. If I’m working on a puzzle and can’t find the right piece, I might feel like giving up. This is something I need to work on because not everything will always be easy. Lastly, I sometimes rush through my homework and make silly mistakes because I want to go play. This means I have to do it again, which takes even more time.

Working on My Weaknesses

I know that it’s okay to have weaknesses because everyone does. The important part is that I try to get better at them. For example, to help with my shyness, I practice talking to my family about my day, so I get used to sharing more with others. For sports, I keep playing and having fun, even if I’m not the best at it. I learn from my mistakes, and slowly, I get a little better each time.

When I get frustrated, I take deep breaths and remind myself to be patient. I tell myself that it’s fine to take breaks and come back to a tough puzzle later. And to stop rushing through my homework, I set a timer to make sure I spend enough time on each question.

In the end, knowing my strengths and weaknesses helps me understand myself better. It shows me what I’m good at and what I can improve. By working on my weaknesses, I can turn them into new strengths one day. And by using my strengths, I can help others and do my best in school and life. We all have different strengths and weaknesses, and that’s what makes each of us special.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

• Essay on My Plans For Next Weekend
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• Essay on My Plans After Graduation

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Strengths and Weaknesses of a Qualitative Study Essay

Strengths of a qualitative study, weaknesses of a qualitative study, works cited, in-depth analysis of a research problem.

One of the greatest strengths of a qualitative study is the deep analysis of a research problem. A qualitative study aims to gain a deeper understanding of the problem at hand. Applying this concept to the selected article, “A systematic review of specialized palliative care for terminal patients: which model is better?” the authors, Garcia-Perez, Linertova, Martin-Olivera, Serrano-Aguilar, and Benitez-Rosario’s objective was to evaluate and integrate the existing literature that focuses on the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of specialized palliative care for critically ill patients and to make a comparison between the diverse organizational frameworks used in providing specialized palliative care (17). Based on this objective, the authors then selected the appropriate studies and analyzed them deeply, and then made a comparison between them. In-depth research facilitated through qualitative studies enables the authors and readers to have a deeper understanding of the research question. In this case, readers gain a deeper understanding of the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of different organizational models used in specialized palliative care.

Congruence of the study’s discussion with the study’s objective

The discussion of a qualitative study corresponds to the study’s objective (Leedy and Ormrod 170). Using the selected article by Garcia-Perez et al. (20-21), the discussion has been carried out following the initially-stated objective. To achieve this, the researchers have discussed in detail each of the studies used in the systematic review including the study design, population, and the nature of programs analyzed in each of the studies. The effectiveness of each of the programs studied was then discussed as well as their cost-effectiveness. The detailed report of each of the reviewed studies makes it easy for readers to understand and make comparisons between the reviewed studies.

Minimal literature review

One of the major limitations of a qualitative study is the lack of a detailed literature review on the topic at hand (Leedy and Ormrod 169). In qualitative studies, the literature review is only used to explain and give support to the theory that will be generated from the study. It does not facilitate data collection. The disadvantage of a minimal literature review is that readers fail to gain a deeper insight into the research problem: for instance, which researchers have done what, which research designs have been used to study the research problem and the nature of the literature gap that exists concerning the research problem. Likewise, the minimal literature review constrains readers from making a comparison between the current study and past studies.

Non-probabilistic sampling techniques

Qualitative studies use samples that have been selected using non-probabilistic sampling techniques such as purposive sampling (Leedy and Ormrod 169). The logic behind this lies in the main objective of the study and therefore participants are selected to answer the research question. The disadvantage of using non-probabilistic sampling techniques is that the results from the study cannot be generalized to the entire population. In the research study conducted by Garcia-Perez et al. (18), the studies used in the review were selected using some criteria such as language (English and Spanish). It is, therefore, possible that similar studies were done in other languages (non-English and non-Spanish) were excluded from the review yet they could provide useful information for the study. Readers should therefore be cautious when reading a qualitative study to ensure that they do not generalize the findings to the entire population because such generalizations could create false inferences.

Garcia-Perez, L., R. Linertova, R. Martin-Olivera, P. Serrano-Aguilar, and M. Benitez-Rosario. “A systematic review of specialized palliative care for terminal patients: which model is better?” Palliative Medicine 23 (2009): 17-22.

Leedy, Paul, and Jean Ellis Ormrod. Survey of research methodology for human services learners . 8th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Custom, 2004.

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IvyPanda. (2024, March 29). Strengths and Weaknesses of a Qualitative Study. https://ivypanda.com/essays/strengths-and-weaknesses-of-a-qualitative-study/

"Strengths and Weaknesses of a Qualitative Study." IvyPanda , 29 Mar. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/strengths-and-weaknesses-of-a-qualitative-study/.

IvyPanda . (2024) 'Strengths and Weaknesses of a Qualitative Study'. 29 March.

IvyPanda . 2024. "Strengths and Weaknesses of a Qualitative Study." March 29, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/strengths-and-weaknesses-of-a-qualitative-study/.

1. IvyPanda . "Strengths and Weaknesses of a Qualitative Study." March 29, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/strengths-and-weaknesses-of-a-qualitative-study/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Strengths and Weaknesses of a Qualitative Study." March 29, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/strengths-and-weaknesses-of-a-qualitative-study/.

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S3, E1: 10 Strengths of NeuroDivergent People (That May Surprise You‪)‬ A Neurodivergent Rebel's Ramblings

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Today I’m BACK with my first long-format-video-essay in over a year. Due to how NeuroDivergent People’s struggles are often used to describe and define us (especially in medical contexts), our weaknesses too frequently overshadow our strengths. Patreon members, Facebook Supporters, and YouTube channel members had access to this video on Wed, January 3, 2023. The video’s public release will be Friday, January 5, 2023. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/neurodivergentrebel/support

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'You are our hope': Palestinian students find strength in U.S. campus protests

Protests over Israel's assault on Gaza have rocked college campuses in the U.S. and drawn condemnation from Israeli leaders, but students in the Palestinian enclave say they are watching the demonstrations closely — and gaining renewed strength from their peers in America.

"I feel proud that there is a group of students who feel what we feel now — and are helping and supporting us," said Reem Musa Suleiman Abu Shinar, who studied law before Oct. 7. She was speaking to an NBC News crew in the city of Rafah in southern Gaza, where she and her family are sheltering along with more than a million others ahead of an expected Israeli ground offensive.

Abu Shinar, 23, was not alone in praising U.S. college students, with university students and children in Gaza gathering over the weekend to send a message of thanks to the demonstrators, with words of gratitude written across tents in Rafah.

News of the encampments at U.S. colleges also reached Gaza's north, with Ezz Lulu, a 22-year-old medical student, urging students to "keep fighting for what's right."

"You are making a difference," he said.

The demonstrations, which escalated Tuesday, have swept across U.S. colleges amid mounting global criticism of Israel's actions in Gaza, where health officials say more than 34,000 people have been killed in more than six months of war.

But some of the protest action has also drawn accusations of antisemitism, which Jewish groups say has soared in the wake of the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, in which some 1,200 people were killed and around 250 others taken hostage. Student protesters have rejected this accusation, with some saying claims of antisemitism are being weaponized against them in a bid to dismiss their criticisms of Israel’s actions in Gaza. 

While the demonstrations stoke controversy in the U.S., they have struck a chord with many in Gaza.

Just over six months ago, Abu Shinar, who is from the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, was studying human rights law at Israa University in Gaza, determined to become a force of positive change for her community.

Her dreams were brought to a screeching halt after Israel launched its assault on Gaza — and in January, she saw them come crashing down after her school was razed to the ground by the Israeli military.

Abu Shinar said it was powerful to see thousands of U.S. students set up encampments calling for an end to the war in Gaza and for their schools to divest from Israel and from companies that could be profiting from the war.

But she said she also fears for the students' academic futures.

“My educational career stopped because of the war, and I do not want any student to be suspended from education,” she said.

The protests in the U.S. started at Columbia University in New York on April 17 with an encampment and student calls to end Israel’s assault on Gaza and for the college to divest from companies benefiting from the war.

Since then, encampments have cropped up on campuses of at least 20 colleges from coast to coast, as well as at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, and Sciences Po in Paris.

Protesters at Columbia University stormed and occupied Hamilton Hall overnight, flying a Palestinian flag from the building's windows and renaming it "Hind Hall" after Hind Rajab , a six-year-old who was killed in Israel's offensive in Gaza after making a harrowing plea for help in calls with first responders.

The elite university had started suspending students who ignored an order to leave their encampment by the university’s 2 p.m. deadline on Monday.

Many universities have said that while they support freedom of speech and will allow protests on campus, encampments violate school policy.

Abdallah Abujaser, a 21-year-old clinical psychology student at Israa University, said he was disturbed to hear that hundreds of students in the U.S. had been arrested. “It is our right to object to anything we do not like,” he said.

“We are all equal,” he added. “We have the right to study and the right to live in safety.”

Lulu said he felt "very disappointed in the hard disciplinary actions" unfolding at U.S. colleges. "The students should feel safe and shouldn't be prevented from expressing their views," he said.

Abujaser, who previously described his devastation after seeing his school destroyed in interviews with NBC News, said he felt a renewed hope for humanity seeing the protests on U.S. campuses.

"Thank you for the humanity within you," he said in a message to rallying students from Rafah, where he is sheltering with his family.

Aya Salama, a 21-year-old English language and translation student who had been set to graduate this spring from Al-Azhar University before the war began, said she hoped demonstrators at U.S. colleges would "stay strong and continue these protests."

With growing reports of student arrests and suspensions, Salama said she felt there were "double standards" at play. "If they made those protests for Ukraine or any European country, we would see another reaction for them," she said.

But, she said, "these protests have given us hope that our voice is heard and that there is people who care about the genocide that’s happening in Gaza."

The International Court of Justice has ordered Israel to prevent acts of genocide by its forces in Gaza, but Israel has described the allegation as "outrageous." The U.S. has also rejected the accusation.

Abu Shinar said she hoped students would keep showing their support, but she also urged them to "be careful."

Today's university students, she said, may become the lawmakers and leaders who one day affect the future of Palestinians. "We appreciate this assistance, but also pay attention to your educational journey so that you can help us later," she said.

"You are our hope."

Chantal Da Silva is a breaking news editor for NBC News Digital based in London. 

Yasmine Salam is an associate producer with the NBC News Investigative Unit. Previously she worked in the London Bureau, covering international stories.