6 Different Styles of Writing

Most people, who take pride in their writing skills, usually can master only one or two styles of writing. In reality, however, there are many different types of writing, and you need to be at least familiar with the main ones to deem yourself a good writer. Here is a short guide on how to write in different styles.

Business Writing

On the one hand, this kind of writing is the easiest because it should be short and straightforward. You don’t need to ponder over metaphors and synonyms, just write in a clear and simple way. However, business writing is challenging when you need to say a lot but are limited in space. Avoid any extra information and don’t drift away from the main thing you need to say.

Academic Writing

When your writing skills determine your grade, you’d want to do utmost to impress the reader. However, in academic writing, simplicity is also appreciated. Don’t try to put too many thesaurus synonyms into your text because then it looks very unnatural and hard to comprehend. It’s great that you know fancy words, but don’t forget that your aim is still academic research and not a fiction book.

Journalism

This kind of writing needs to combine too different things – being informative and being interesting for general public. A good journalist is the person who can present even the dullest topic in an interesting way. That’s when you need to learn your way with words. You can implement different words to say the same thing and you’ll get the most success if you use words that appeal to emotions.

Letter to the Editor

This is a very specific type of writing that needs to be both short and gripping. You’d probably want to express your complete disagreement with something that has been written, but if you want your letter to be published, don’t let emotions overtake. The best approach is to show your opinion through humor. Then your letter is likely to be published, and other readers will enjoy reading it.

Marketing Copy

It doesn’t matter how extensive a marketing copy is as long as it fulfills its purpose – to sell a product. Nowadays, it can be quite a hard thing to do because there isn’t much that people haven’t heard before. The key is not to depict your product as the best of its type, but to highlight the feature that makes it better. So don’t say “our supreme sausages”, but use “our (insert unique feature) sausages” instead.

Poetry

Poetry is way too complex to define. That’s why no one can teach you how to write it. Not everything that rhymes can be called poetry just like not every poetry needs a rhyme. What it does need to do is to say a lot by saying little. It’s more subtle than prose and hence one of the most difficult writing styles to master.

In the end, whatever style you’re writing in, remember to take the audience into account and consider the purpose of writing. As long as you keep these things in mind, you will not have problems with any type of writing.