Top Ten Ways of Becoming a Better Academic Freelance Writer

I have found the following ten guidelines to be helpful in the development of my skills as an academic freelancer. Do you agree?

1. Hone your style

The development of your own writing styles comes with practice and time. Yet there are exercises you can do in order to hone your style. The way you write a paper should be your own unique style and not an attempt to write like anyone else, no matter how skilled that person may be. The papers you write should always have a flow, and they should be both easy and interesting to read. Easy does not imply simplicity. It implies an effort to create a piece that provides all the necessary components of the essay in a style that makes it genuinely interesting for the reader.

2. Learn all the citation styles

There is no way to become an academic writer if you don't know the various citation styles. The most commonly used styles are; APA, MLA, Harvard, and Chicago/Turabian. Some would suggest that the final two are the same but the Turabian style is modeled on the Chicago style with slight variations.

3. Develop your research skills

A good academic writer is first and foremost a good researcher. Research skills, like writing, take time to develop. It is worth the time and effort to avail yourself of the various databases available to you via the Internet, and in the libraries if necessary. Some of the more common ones are EBSCO, PSYCHMED, MEDNET, and QUESTIA. Spend some time with each one of them so that you can find materials quickly. Research for academic writing should also go fairly quickly, as one often doesn't have time for days of research, but rather only a few hours. This will depend on the project.

4. Develop an understanding of various essay forms

Ie. Research essay versus Argumentative essay. It is essential that one learns how to write the various types of essays. There is a different flow and the client will expect that you will understand how to develop a coherent academic argument, versus the development of an outline for a research project.

5. Become familiar with what constitutes plagiarism

There is no place for plagiarism in academic (or any type of) writing. It is imperative that you familiarize yourself with the rules and always pay very close attention to them in the writing process.

6. Learn how to re-write and edit your own work

It is often said that good writers are the best re-writers. A skilled writer will constantly review the paper throughout the writing process, and know when something needs to be edited or re-written.

7. Develop skills in customer service

Another skill you will benefit by is a little bit of customer service and communications. Clients, like everyone else, like to be spoken to with respect and kindness. It is your role to be professional at all times.

8. Learn to accept critiques of your work

Never assume that your work is perfect. If the client, or company advises you that edits or revisions required, the only thing you say in response to this is: "Please advise me what needs to be done."

9. Accept your limitations - Work in the field of your expertise

Another essential skill is to write only in the field of your expertise. It may be tempting to take on an interesting subject, but if it's not your area then don't attempt to do this.

10. Always check your work before you submit

Check the work, then submit. You'd be surprised how many mistakes you might have ommited ;-).

duh...

Can you post a link to these guidelines?

Why is this pakki person after you? He so abusive...

I don't know. He seems to have serious psychological issues. Pity.

speaking of psychological issues, Uncle Tom, you're from Pakistan, right?

I am pretty sure about it.

Everyone has his own method of writing. Those are some useful tips for novice writers. As I've said elsewhere, the first 10,000 papers are always the hardest.

The problem is that what we consider plagiarism. what we know to be actual plagiarism, is different from the way that the software and AI dissect the papers written by students. There is a tendency for these programs to flag certain aspects of a paper as plagiarized, even though there is no reason to do so. So, rather than becoming familiar with what constitutes plagiarism, it is sometimes better for a writer to run the paper through an independent plagiarism checker first. Just so the traditional and modern concepts of plagiarism are addressed before a paper is submitted to a client.

There are no such things as "modern" vs. "traditional" concepts of plagiarism. The concept of academic plagiarism hasn't changed at all; the only thing that has changed is that modern software sometimes incorrectly flags original content as apparent "plagiarism" because some combinations of 4 or 5 words happen to be (randomly, coincidentally, and totally innocently) identical to combinations of words published elsewhere, more often than not, in totally unrelated topics. There's no point to running a preliminary scan, because if the content flagged in a Nursing project is based on apparent or totally coincidental similarity to a series of words in a project about the history of war (for example), there's nothing to "address" even if you see that it's been flagged. Professors also understand this completely. The same is true of factual or historical information that is practically impossible to express in any combination of words that hasn't already been written every possible way countless times (such as when certain historical events occurred and what countries were involved in wars). Writers who aren't simply paraphrasing everything from sources shouldn't need to scan anything they write, because they should already know with certainty that everything they're writing that isn't cited comes directly and originally and exclusively from their own minds. That concept hasn't changed since the invention of ink.

I have learned over time that the better and best way to become an academic freelance writer is to simply stick to the topics that the writer actually trained in and matriculated from during his university days. That way he avoids the pitfalls of revisions due to working on subjects that he is little trained for or in some cases, not trained for at all. The college papers that students pay professionals to write is not the place nor time to increase the academic knowledge of the writer. That is something he should do during his own time and on his dime.

In some cases, the companies do not disclose the actual major the writer focused on in college and the students will not have any way of knowing about it since the orders are placed in a common server where a writer who is "interested" in the paper can take the paper as he wishes or he can put in a lowest bid to get the paper, regardless of his actual educational background and relevant skills and learning to write the paper.

As I've already explained several times, the idea that an experienced academic writer can't write great projects in any subject without having a "degree" in that subject is complete nonsense. Most college students receive only one degree, and many of them don't even select a major until they're almost halfway through college. All of them have to write essays in subjects in which they'll never be receiving degrees, and some of them write "A" papers. If a college student who has written a total of maybe 10 college essays in his entire life is capable of writing an "A" paper in a subject in which he'll never receive a degree, why wouldn't a professional writer with thousands of academic essays under his belt be able to write an "A" paper for the same assignment?

Consider that college students who haven't yet even selected their majors (or who are Biology or Economics majors) take Political Science and Sociology courses all the time. Even a Political Science or Sociology major has only taken, at most, maybe 8 course in his major by the time he's halfway through college. Meanwhile, after 20+ years of doing this for a living, I've written hundreds of projects in each of those subject areas and I've read thousands of pages of textbook chapters and journal articles, quite a few of which were actually assigned as readings by the professors who assigned the projects for which I read them. I'm obviously not going to hold my breath waiting for you to actually provide any kind of substantive response to any of my questions; but other readers should wonder how a college student -- especially one who is already in the market for an academic writer in the first place, because writing essays presumably isn't his strong suit -- could possibly write a better Political Science or Sociology essay than someone who has been writing them (literally) since that student was an infant and who has already probably read ten times more Political Science or Sociology textbook and journal pages than that student will ever read in his entire life, especially if he isn't majoring in and going into a career in those fields.

Furthermore, even having a specific degree hardly means that a writer necessarily writes his best projects in that area or that another experienced writer can't write just as good projects in that field, even without a degree. While I certainly do write many projects in my own degree areas, I actually prefer writing Political Science and Sociology and Philosophy and Creative Writing essays to (many) History, Psychology, and Law projects. Likewise, I've known other freelance writers who didn't have degrees in History or Psychology whose projects in those areas were comparable in quality to mine, precisely because if you're smart, and you're a good writer, and you have good reading comprehension, it really couldn't matter less whether or not an experienced writer has a "degree" in every project field. As always, what matters much more is simply that the writer is realistic about his abilities and honest with his clients when he indicates what his relative confidence level is with any specific project.

So, how could you even imagine that a typical college student looking for an academic writer or a much less experienced writer with a degree in a field in which I've already written many hundreds of projects over 20 years a could possibly write a better essay than I can in any of those subject areas?

@FreelanceWriter
The boaster needs to showcase his/her accomplishments. The sense of inferiority at the heart of constant recitation of their great lifestyle, elite education .... are attempts to convince themselves that they are ok.(counsellingconnection)

Still waiting to hear more details about the degrees you claim to have. An honest writer would not hesitate to divulge such information on this forum or their website or both. Students beware.

UK Essays would not allow a graduate to bid for assignments in every topic they post. Their reasoning is clear. Only a graduate who has studied a subject for at least 3 years has the depth of knowledge to write an assignment in that topic. It stands to reason if you think about it. But if you want a cut and paste hack then by all means stick with a boaster with an inflated sense of his worth but only a smattering or zero knowledge in the majority of topics listed on his website. We all know the sensible option.