Is "writing experience" really needed to be a good writer?

I run a small writing agency in a "foreign country." I often receive emails from writers who are proud to have a 5-10-15 years of "academic writing experience" and seek employment. And every time I wonder - why do you need so much experience? Writing and research doesn't need much experience, does it ;d

To me a good writer should have acquired adequate "writing and research experience" while at school. High-school is 4 years, college 4 years, sometimes university 3-5 years. Why would a writer need more experience than that? Maybe they brag about it to get a better rate, that could be the reason. Thoughts?

I you need to have expereince for being a good writer.

Maybe they mean experience writing for other companies. That means a lot, because writers can get an idea of the pay and treatment to expect, common issues, etc.

Like anything else people do for a living, someone with many years of experience writing (literally) thousands of essays is likely to be much better at this than someone who has never done it for a living before. Why would stating how much experience they have necessarily amount to "bragging"? What would you prefer a highly-experienced writer do besides describing his or her level of experience accurately? Lie to you and pretend not to be quite as experienced just so you don't think it's "bragging"?


Your implication here is that anybody who managed to complete any college or university degree in any field is necessarily qualified to write academic essays (or anything else) professionally. That's not remotely true.

Generally, newly-graduated students don't write all that well and they have little ability to write in areas outside of their academic majors, much less to handle any kind of high volume in very short periods of time. Being a good writer in the first place is certainly more important than how much "experience" someone has, but I can tell you from extensive personal experience as a good writer that doing this at a high level day in and day out and handling multiple overlapping short deadlines is not something that you can do just because you're a good writer.

At most, a good but inexperienced writer new to this business can produce maybe one good relatively short essay in one subject area per day, while also making many of the same mistakes that students on track to graduating typically make in their writing and there's nothing magical that suddenly occurs on receiving a diploma that makes every graduate a better writer than any other student making progress toward graduating. Conversely, a good highly-experienced writer can produce 20+ pages in 4 or 5 or more totally different subject areas in a day, and during the high season, daily. I'd never have been able to do that 10 or 15 years and maybe 6,000 projects ago, notwithstanding that I was always a good writer.

Essay writers are like fine wine. Better with age.

That must be it. But I can assume there's not much difference about how companies operate. That is, writer can see instructions and deadline and his/her job is to delivered the order on time.


I sort of agree. But on the other hand writers who have written thousands of essays may get a little lazy as time goes by and copy-paste already used parts. I hope it doesn't happen too often :)

I'm sorry, but that's just ridiculous. Nobody who does this for a fulltime living and who's spent a decade or more establishing a reputation for reliability and honesty would ever jeopardize that reputation out of laziness. If anything, it's new writers "exploring" this occupation with little or nothing to lose and without enough experience to know exactly what projects they can and can't complete who might be tempted to cheat their customers by taking shortcuts. If anything, it's precisely backwards: the longer you've been doing this and the more established your reputation the less you'd ever want to do anything to risk it.

Just out of curiosity, how long have you actually been running your writing agency and in what country?

2 years, I'm in China but I was born in India.

I can't believe people buy this guy's BS-- and he writes these hilarious run-ons. I understand that this is just an anti-scam message board, but it's some of the most boring, self-aggrandizing hor-hit I've ever seen. FW, you are a low-rent PT Barnum in a scum hole. This is your replacement for not passing the bar and going to chase ambulances. Hey mods-- give this guy some ad space so he can **** off!

Anyway, the process of recycling one's old material ended when Turnitin won its lawsuit. It's just not feasible anymore; that's not to say I don't miss and long for those carefree days.

Companies also vary greatly, often depending on location, local consumer protection, etc.

I'm an ESL person and have never hidden it. Why are you writing in such a bad tone? I find Freelancer's advice useful and he shows he knows a lot about this business.

You're a company owner, and therefore, and excuse my tone, but therefore, you are either unemployable, a dumb criminal appointee, or both. You have no right to judge writers who have been working hard for years in this industry, and are smarter than you are, for being proud of their years of tenure. These are the people whose backs you ride, you ungrateful, ignorant ************.

And I personally don't care what you find about the peddlers here. Keep it to yourself next time.

I put pretty good odds on your running one of those "foreign" fealty scams where writers are routinely fined.

Is your own employer not employable and dumb criminal too?

Nothing good ever comes after this phrase.

Editor75 took a tone!

Yes, Matta, 100% of them. And since you didn't discount them, I guess I'd collect on those odds.

Oh, that clarifies everything. Ed75 - I've got a nice home in downtown Detroit to sell you at a good price. It's a steal.

Thanks, but you can keep it.

Yes I agree with you writing experience is really necessary for a good writer. Because at the time when we start writing we did lots of mistakes mostly when you have not much knowledge about the crammer and way of writing. After writing more and more an individual become perfect in writing, So it is very necessary to have experience in writing to overcome throughout your mistakes.

MAKE mistakes/ DO your homework-- big error, there. It makes me wonder who you are to give writing advice.

"crammer" vs. "grammar" is just a mistake, no big deal... watch that second A in grammar, though it's a real doozy.

*though; it's a real doozy.

Yes, I think writing experience is very important for a writer. Because unless and until you will not have any experience it will be difficult for you to understand the client requirement.

Yes writing experience is must for being a good writer. Experience provide improvement in quality in any work and in writing it is very important.

Just as with any other profession, a writer gets better with time. Through experience writing various types of papers and exposure to various fields of research, a writer, whether connected with a company or as an independent, gets honed and his writing talents improve in the process. While anybody can write a research paper, not everyone can write an excellent research paper guaranteed to deliver good grades to the client. It is this guarantee of a well written paper that comes with the experience of the writer. It is necessary for a writer to improve his craft over time in order for him to be able to gain access to higher level and higher CPP papers at the academic outsourcing company. The same is true for independent writers. The more experienced a writer is, the longer he has been writing, the better the results of his work are. There is something to be said about writers who have been writing for at least 5 years or more. They have the "wisdom of the sage" when it comes to writing papers. They know how to best approach a research paper, or how to represent a simple essay to make it shine for a client who is not a native English speaker. The answer to your question, in my opinion, is yes. Writing experience is necessary if one is to become a good writer.

I've heard there are many bad freelance writers.. bad to the point that they would send a resume and writing samples (probably not self-composed) without a single sentence in the body of the email because they may be afraid whatever they write would instantly reveal and spoil their 'perfect' samples and resumes ;)

Yes, there are. Most of them come out of Kenya, the Ukraine, India, and Pakistan. Those types of writers can barely string together a coherent English sentence. They seem to get by as they offer their services as ESL writers to ESL students. That way, they don't easily get caught in the web of language proficiency deceit that they promote. If the student has even worse English grammar than the writer does, he comes out looking like perfection as he is able to imitate the writing style of the student without any effort. The student doesn't know that the writer he hired can barely write in English himself.

Let me add some information regarding bad independent writers in relation to writing experience. Before the writing experience is even considered, the applicant must first display a thorough command of the English language. Meaning, he must be fluent to the point of being a native speaker. If he can't even write a cover letter but has writing samples, I would not even read the samples, I would immediately place his application in the reject pile.

I have heard of some writing companies that prefer TOEFL and IELTS passers as ESL writer applicants. They feel that the writer has the most basic college level writing skills if they pass any of those tests. So, if you consider the score that the applicant got in one of those tests, coupled with their writing experience, then maybe, just maybe, the student won't end up with a bad freelance writer doing the work.

Exactly. A student who considers working with a freelance writer who contacts them first should reply to their offer with a 'custom' question that would require the writer to respond to it in his/her own words. Once they receive a reply (typically written in broken English), they will know to get away :{

A good rule of thumb when vetting freelance writers, Smiley73. Sadly, a degree from the most prestigious university means nothing when it comes to writing qualities. As I'm sure most of us have seen, holding a Masters or PhD means nothing in the grand scope of excellent writing. When I worked "a real job" (mocking some of my naysayers), I came across upper level execs whose writing skills were elementary at best. Sure, some snub us freelancers--especially academic writers--but the fact remains the same: some people just can't write!

@writer4life, I have a firm belief that writers are actually born and not made.

I mean where would literature be without the likes of Harper Lee or Jack Kerouac?

Both are notable writers who never finished college. The true measure of a writer is not in the degree or the number of Masters or Phd's one has (although it doesn't hurt to have a few), but in the quality of the work that is produced. Granted that anybody can write, but not everybody can write well.

I would not underestimate the writing prowess of an independent ESL writer who is dedicated to his craft when compared with an also dedicated ENL writer. Sometimes, experience and dedication beats out formal training. Training one can get on the job.

I remember, in the second grade, I had an English teacher who could not spell the word "abbreviation". She marked all of us who spelled the word correctly during a spelling quiz wrong. The parents turned it into an issue, she still kept her job and went on to retire from the profession eventually. With teachers like that, it's no wonder that some students struggle to write.

I am lucky that I come from a highly educated family of professionals, I actually studied courses related to English and writing, love my craft, and I am also able to practice my profession as a writer in various forms.

That's how I ended up as an academic consultant. Far from the writing world but still close enough to influence the writing abilities of the newcomers to the field.

There is a big difference in writing as a student an amateur or an experienced writer. There are several rules in writing, which should be known by every writer, these rules can not be known by an amateur writer or a person writing for one time or for just a couple of years as a student. The field of writing is deep and just having raw talent as a writer is not sufficient to produce a perfect piece of written work and that is the reason why writers always talk about their experience as a writer, because it clearly suggests that they are well aware of the different rules required for writing different content.

@Writer4U
Nobody is saying that experience isn't important; what we're saying is that natural writing ability is the primary determinant of whether or not someone can do this particular job well or become any other kind of professional writer. I've mentioned in other contexts that my teachers always said that I was a "good writer" ever since grade school, but that I still dreaded having to write term papers in college and that I actually chose law school over grad school for psychology because the latter required so much more writing. My natural talent meant that my college papers always came out well once I finally managed to finish them, but I was so inefficient at the process that they seemed to be daunting challenges at the time, just like they are for my clients. It was my acquired experience that now allows me to write fast and to keep up a high volume of writing, but the essays that I submitted to my first essay company as writing samples back in 2002 or 2003 weren't written much less well than my thousandth or five thousandth essay for hire; they just took me a lot longer to do back then.

Natural writing ability is what's referred to as a "necessary but insufficient condition" to write well professionally. A person with natural writing talent PLUS experience can build up a large enough clientele to make a decent living doing this; but a person without that natural talent in the first place just isn't going to be able to do that, even with a lot more "experience." Whether or not someone has a talent for writing is actually something that can be ascertained from a single page of writing on virtually any topic, and nobody really needs any "experience" to write a single page on a topic of interest to him. Writing talent (and its absence) can even be fairly evident in forum posts, and they don't require any significant "experience" either.

Understand?

@FreelanceWriter well, I understand, but what I said is being misunderstood. I was saying that experience is assurance, especially when talking about academic writing, because academic writing involves several factors like referencing styles, format, reflective topics, essays, proposals and so on. Now each of these projects need to be written in different styles and sometimes different tones. Now when a writer is applying for a job he speaks about his experience, because by this the recruiter should know that he is aware of all these factors, because no one sends their credentials for a job as an academic writer, especially not to any individual writer or group of writers apart from companies like UVO or Shark. So, it is not possible to know what the person scored during his graduation, which means one cannot really know how good his work was. The only way to let the recruiter know of ones expertise is by highlighting his or her experience and so they attempt to tell the recruiter that they are going to deal with someone who can give them assurance with their work. That is what I am saying, as per the initial post that specifically questioned the reason for writers to speak about their experience and not simply about natural skills and experience.

@Writer4U
In between the original question posed in the initial post and your first contribution to the thread, did you happen to read Post #4?

Yes, experience is very important for any writer, bcz their experience clearly shows in their work through quality.

Re: Is "writing experience" really needed to be a good writer?

Is experience needed to be a great lover? That's debatable (the answer is yes) but damn. Is this a real question? Can you be a great restaurant critic or movie reviewer without actually eating or watching anything? I thought not. Relax. The first ten thousand papers are the hardest but it doesn't get much easier after that. Homework. Day in and day out. It's like the gangsters -- "This is the like we chose." Get in or get out -- it's your choice. This is tough work and that's the bottom line. It takes time and some trial and error to get it right but it's worth it if you ask me. I wouldn't have done anything else for the past 20 years ...

Just as you, I believe that all my writer applicants have had some sort of experience with essay and research writing as they progressed through the levels of education. This serves as their training ground.

However, that does not make them an expert in the field of academic writing as not all of them continue to write long after they have completed their undergraduate courses. Those that do, should definitely take pride in the advanced writing skills that their profession has helped them achieve. As for those who boast of almost 20 years academic writing experience, I always say that I need to see it to believe it. I always test them before accepting them as writers because the ones who boast are normally the ESL writers who are trying to make themselves sound more important than they actually are. Their skills are questionable and I normally find out if they are truly experienced writers or not depending upon how they write their test research papers.

So yes, writing experience is a requirement in this field, but boastful writing experience is not. I have hired writers who have worked less years in the business because they really deliver the paper requirements. While the decades old professionals sometimes fail to do so.

I think this is debatable, to be honest. Some people here keep arguing that you need "professional writing" experience. However, I know a couple of people who are even better writers than most professional writers - and yet, they do not get the same publicity out of it. These people are either (1) naturally blessed with the writing capability and/or (sometimes a mixture of both) (2) grew up with the top-class educational institutions that trained them to be who they are now. I think that a better gauge for a quality writer is not "writing experience" rather it should be more seen through his/her samples. Although I do agree with what was mentioned above that professionally writing can give a person a glimpse of what their pay bracket should be, how much workload a company should give them, etc. But in terms of quality, I don't think it really matters. Plus, different companies seek different types of writers. Experience doesn't count if you can't accommodate to a specific style of writing demanded by a company.

All the academic writers have writing experience. They excelled at academic writing during their own time as students. From grade school all the way to the completion of their undergraduate degree, they have been training all their academic lives for the job. They have ample "writing experience" to do the job because of their academic exposure in the field. Just like any other job, experience will help the writer complete his job. It is incorrect to ask about "writing experience" because all students have some sort of writing experience. While they may not be very good at it, they normally know how to write research papers. So yes, writing experience helps and it is not a requirement, it is a given. You have to know how to write in order to make it through the educational system in any country. This is really a very silly question to be asking. There is no student around who does not have some sort of academic writing experience. What makes them stand out, is that they learned how to parlay the training into an actual paying job within the gig economy.

In my experience, the vast majority of college graduates can't write very well at all. Except for (some) people who pursued degrees that emphasized writing, most college students don't write much better on the day they graduate than they did on the day they first showed up to college. That's mainly because college students rarely approach writing assignments as potential learning opportunities. They dread them and blow them off as long as possible, before amassing a ton of (largely unnecessary) research material. Then, they pull an all-nighter to cobble together something with a lot of content plagiarized in several different ways and heavy reliance on (unnecessary) block quotes, just struggling to fill the minimum number of required pages by any means possible. They do that maybe a dozen times in 4 years of college. That's not exactly a training program that makes someone a good writer.

Just as a typical example of how well typical college graduates write, about a month ago, a friend referred a friend to me because the latter had expressed an interest in doing this for a living; so I asked him whether he had any writing samples. He didn't have anything suitable for a sample, so I sent him the specs of the last very simple short undergraduate project that I'd just completed in two hours to see what he could do with that in 3 days. What he sent me was just atrocious in half a dozen different ways. Not only is he a college graduate with a BA in Journalism, but he teaches middle school social studies and history for a living. Likewise, when I worked for the U.S. government as a Writer/Editor, I was assigned to provide periodic writing evaluation and training sessions for about 50 agency employees, all of whom had college degrees, some of whom had master's degrees, and about a quarter of whom were executive level with master's and/or doctorate degrees. I could count on the fingers of one hand how many of them I'd trust to produce a decent 5-page undergraduate academic essay in 48 hours.