by Simon Wright

Created on: February 09, 2007   Last Updated: June 10, 2010

The term “writer” covers a very broad spectrum which includes authors, journalists, bloggers, and technical writers. It’s clear that the task of writing a novel is very different than writing an online article and some of the mistakes that writers make are closely related to the genre that they are working within. However, there are also a wide range of generic mistakes that writers make so let’s explore the most common of these.

1. Failure to consider your audience:

Writing shouldn’t be a vanity exercise. Your objective isn’t to impress yourself with your ability to write flowery descriptions. Rather, you are writing something that you want readers (or a publisher) to take value from. In some cases, writers will be hoping to get paid and to build up their writing reputation. This requires that you provide content that your audience finds easy to understand, interesting, and that perhaps provides them with information and insights that they didn’t previously have. Remember to consider your audience’s level of understanding on a topic, and not to overload them with industry jargon.

2. Being too wordy:

Writers like to write and many fall into the trap of exceeding their audience’s attention span. This is especially the case with online writing, where brevity is generally appreciated. Being concise doesn’t have to mean sacrificing quality. Indeed, forcing yourself to work within a word count may result in better writing as you ruthlessly eradicate supercilious text.

3. Spelling and grammar:

All writers occasionally make spelling and grammatical errors and your audience may be forgiving provided that they are kept to a minimum. However, we’ve all seen examples of writing that is riddled with typos that would easily have been spotted had the writer bothered to use their spellchecker. Before publishing content that has your name attached to it, make sure that you review your article and that you have captured and removed all such errors. This will instantly increase your credibility as a writer.

4. Lack of coherence and structure:

No doubt most of us will have been told at school that all stories and essays should have a start, a middle, and an end. And that we should spend some time planning before putting pen to paper. This advice doesn’t just hold for exam technique, it continues to be invaluable advice for all writers throughout their career. Structure also means breaking up chunks of text

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