Teaching about writing is a great way to better your own writing skills. It is not necessary for you to be an eminent professor to teach about writing, you can start with a local writing group, create your own writing blogs or join an online writing community. Many freelance writers and successful authors do this and provide valuable assistance to inexperienced writers. An experienced writer who is willing to assist struggling writers gains better insight into the process of writing. This helps to further develop good writing skills.

When you start teaching about writing, and you offer guidance to new writers, you are likely to receive many articles, short stories and novel extracts for critique. All writers benefit from reading what other people write, and you will see a whole range of styles and quality of writing. In your appraisals you will be pointing out any errors and indicating how the writer can make corrections or improvements. By providing constructive criticism you learn more about what writers can do to improve their skills.

Writing useful articles, and sharing your writing tips online, are additional ways of teaching about writing. There are many opportunities to write online, and anything you write should encourage comments and responses, whether you post on your blog, at article sites, in social networks, in forums and on message boards.

The comments you get from your online readers might include additional examples, and suggestions which will be useful to you. Your readers will also use the comment box to ask questions. One single grammar article can generate dozens of questions about the correct way to use capital letters, commas and confusing words.

~ Answering questions

Teaching about writing requires you to answer some very specific questions. Before you respond to your online followers, or your writing students, you might need to look up an answer for yourself, or to check that the response you give is the correct answer.

Your own writing skills are improved when you know how to provide good examples in response to questions on grammar, punctuation and correct word usage.

~ Critical appraisal

Minor errors are not always easy for writers to see in their own work, but you do get better at spotting errors, and avoiding them in your own writing, when you critically appraise other people's writing. You also need to think of suggestions, and provide examples, to help writers advance their skills and develop their own writing style.

~ Writing articles

Writing articles is a good way to improve your own skills. You can learn a lot about grammar issues, novel writing, and how to write website content, when you research those topics for your own articles. That knowledge will better your own writing skills.

Teaching about writing can improve your writing skills. You gain from the insight teaching provides, from your own responses and your critical appraisals. You develop as a writer from the questions and comments you receive when you share what you know about writing. By offering encouragement to struggling writers in their endeavors, you too can become more successful.

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