I was an English teacher for more than 30 years. Ours is a noble profession that has helped countless students become skilled writers. I remember my high school English teacher – Bill Testerman – with fondness and gratitude, and there’s a little bit of him in everything I write.

But there’s a gap between what’s often taught in high school English classes and what’s required for success in real-world writing. Today I’m going to discuss three important differences that you might want to look for in your own writing.

1.  Grammar

Very likely you had a teacher or two who told you that memorizing grammatical terms and labeling parts of sentences would magically turn you into a writer. Not true. Most good writers acquired their sentence skills through reading (tons of it, often with a flashlight under the bedcovers when we were growing up).

2,  Sophisticated vocabulary

I used to work with an instructor who endlessly complained about the lack of sophistication in her students’ essays. I wish I’d thought of thrusting one of those essays into her hands and asking her to rewrite it. I can guarantee that the results would have been pompous gobbledygook. You can’t stuff fancy words into an essay about – say – your grandmother’s kitchen or your part-time job at Dairy Queen.

Mind you, I’ve read marvelous – even publishable – student papers about those topics: lively, insightful, and full of vivid detail. But calling your grandmother’s stewpot a “large capacity culinary vessel” doesn’t make for good writing. What’s worse is that the fancy-words habit is difficult to break later on, when you need strong, vigorous writing in the workplace.

3. Hedging

High-school students don’t have the life experience and critical-thinking skills needed for in-depth writing about topics like prison reform, medical marijuana, or legalized prostitution. Not surprisingly, some instructors tell their students to take a cautious middle path when they write about a controversial subject. The papers that come in a week later are empty of content and loaded with qualifiers: rather, somewhat, in most cases, for the most part, usually. 

It’s not difficult to see why teachers might want to rein in their students’ writing this way. But this cautious approach means that students may never learn how to write with passion and conviction.

Gifted teachers like my beloved Bill Testerman find age-appropriate ways for students to develop the writing and thinking skills needed for real-world success. Today, though, I’m talking to writers, not teachers. Do you have some leftover writing habits that are holding you back? Are you ready to build some new habits that will serve you better? And are you determined to start today?

                                    Bill Testerman