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08/07/2024
EVOLVING AND SUSTAINING
WRITING SKILLS
YUSSUF AYO(DELE)
DIRECTOR, GRAMMAR CLINIC FORUM
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BACKGROUND, SCOPE, AND OBJECTIVE

UNDERSTANDING THE TOPIC
EVOLUTION AND INSPIRATION: THE ART OF
WRITING
PRACTICE AND PERFECTION: THE SCIENCE
CONTENT OF WRITING
SUSTAINING THE SKILLS
SUMMARY

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Background, Scope, and Objective

 Contributing thoughtfully and professionally to topical issues of national concern either by writing or
speaking is generally not one of our traits as Nigerian youths. All thanks to the rampant promotion of
profanities and demotion of education.
 Ability to craft good emails, write engaging social media content, compelling stories/articles, convincing
proposals, etc – writing communication skills generally is increasingly in demand in the 21st-century
workplace. Unfortunately, however, it is a quality fast becoming evanescent among youths. It is either not
present at all, or not fully developed in many.
 The observed decline in writing culture is perhaps a consequence of the obvious exponential decline in
reading culture. After all, what’s the need to write when there’s no need to read? The “School na scam”
mantra has contributed greatly to this.
 Writing, to many, is a daunting, boring, or herculean task and thus have had to admit defeat – “Writing no be
my thing”, “who writing epp?”

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Background, Scope, and Objective

While this presentation will not make you a writer So, at the end of this presentation, it is hoped that you
overnight, it is specifically targeted at: would have:

 People struggling with writing, and want to learn
ways to write better
 People who want to rekindle their passion for
writing
 People who have been condemned “not good at
writing” and want to change the narrative
 Had a change of mind-set on writing from: difficult to
“something doable” (NOT SIMPLE!), and boring to
enjoyable
 Been inspired however little to pickup your pen and
make an attempt at writing
 Learnt some ways to write better, and add “flavours” to
your write-ups

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Background, Scope, and Objective

This presentation will run alongside live text and voice notes, dropping a slide at a time. The entire slides will
however be sent at the end of the presentation for easy reference and benefit of people outside this virtual room.
This presentation will take approximately one hour and a half with “virtual tea breaks” in between.
Although the ideas discussed in this presentation can be applied to a wide genre of writing, it would be more
suited for general essays and articles but may not discuss specific details of highly specialised academic writings
such as projects, dissertations, journal articles, etc.
This topic is too wide to be exhausted in a presentation of this nature, therefore, I will only be as concise as
possible on the target areas of the essays and articles mentioned above. You’d find a detailed treatise of all the
ideas shared here in my upcoming book: FLASHLIGHT ON ESSAY AND LETTER WRITING. Watch out for that next
year In Shaa Allah!

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APPETISER
Let’s start with a poll

Login to:
https://www.menti.com/alumi2233ibh

ENTER THE CODE:

8905 1024

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POLL RESULT

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Understanding the Topic
EVOLVING AND SUSTAINING WRITING SKILLS

Evolving = developing

Sustaining = maintaining

Summarily, we want to learn how to develop a skill in writing and maintain it! 08/07/2024
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Evolution and Inspiration: The Art of Writing

So how then can we develop an interest in writing?

 Reading
 Paraphrasing
 Transcribing
 Building a good relationship with words.

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Evolution and Inspiration: The Art of Writing

READING:
 The dearth of content is a major reason why people run away from writing. Writing becomes quite difficult
when you lack sufficient knowledge of the topic you’re writing about. Naturally, when you know something
very well, you’d love to teach it, even when you are not asked to do so. There is a burning desire in you to
share the knowledge. Same with writing. The task of writing is half done when the topic is something you
know very well!
 One way to achieve this is by reading widely! If you already have a topic you want to write about (as in the
case of an essay competition), then make adequate research on it, read thoroughly about the topic and watch
your confidence boost.
 If you want to be able to write about any random topic, then make it a habit to read at least a page of a book
a day.
 Reading does not only fortify you with content to write but also with different writing styles you can emulate.

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Evolution and Inspiration: The Art of Writing

PARAPHRASING
 Start your journey into writing by practising how to rewrite different paragraphs from
what you have read in your own words.
 You may then proceed to paraphrase your writings too.
 This is very helpful to starters as it helps you gain confidence while playing around with
words. Paraphrasing goes along with editing, it affords you the opportunity of making
your write-ups better, while correcting the grammar errors.
 A list of reliable online tools that you can use for paraphrasing is provided on slide 29

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Evolution and Inspiration: The Art of Writing

TRANSCRIBING
 Practise transcribing your speech to text. Speaking and writing aid each other in many
ways. You might feel more comfortable with one than with the other. Therefore use your
buoyancy in one to levitate in the other. It helps many times, for example, to write down
a speech you want to present as a way of rehearsal. The reverse is also true. If you are
finding it hard to put your thoughts in writing, it might be helpful to say them aloud first,
record the speech, then transcribe it, and then paraphrase it.

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Evolution and Inspiration: The Art of Writing

BUILDING A GOOD RELATIONSHIP WITH WORDS

 You do not necessarily need to memorise the entire dictionary like “Obahiagbon” to be a good
writer, but making the dictionary your companion is nevertheless helpful in many ways.
 Being able to say the same thing in different ways – paraphrasing – requires a substantial
knowledge of many words. The larger your vocabulary, the more confident you are in writing.
 Reading widely will ordinarily suffice for this, but then, one must be intentional about it.
 You may get a note where you write new words and their meaning and usage as you encounter
them. Ensure to form your sentences with them, and use them regularly in speech too.
 Take time to learn some idioms too, they would add flavour to your essay as we would see later.

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So in summary, we can we develop an interest in writing by:

 Reading regularly
 Paraphrasing
 Transcribing
 Building a good relationship with words.

Practice these often, and you will have a burning desire to write or write more often.

Having learnt the art of writing, it’s time to learn its science – the practical approach to writing
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Practice and Perfection: The Science of 15
Writing

LAYOUT
Before you plunge into the write up, it is essential you take time to plan how your essay
would look like.
Your essay layout may include:
1. Topic breakdown
2. Audience, purpose, and tone
3. Paragraphing
4. Word count
5. others

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TOPIC BREAKDOWN
 This is a list of all the subtopics you want to address in the essay. This is one of the most
difficult but rewarding aspects of your essay layout. It works well in cases where you
already have a topic to write about (such as in essay competitions, English language
examinations, or just personal articles). Once you already have all the subtopics you want
to write about, it would be very easy to flow through the writing process without getting
stuck.
 Suppose you want to write on the topic: INCESSANT ASUU STRIKE IN NIGERIA:
CHARTING a WAY OUT, you might want to think of addressing the following subtopics

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 INTRODUCTION (tell the full meaning of ASUU, a brief about the union including its establishment and
mandate. You may want to include a few notable universities that are presently under ASUU and few
that are not )
 HISTORY OF ASUU STRIKES (cite many cases of ASUU strikes including the recent once and some
previous once too. Include the length of the strikes too)
 EFFECT OF THE STRIKES (include all possible effects – on education, economy, security, etc)
 PREVIOUS EFFORTS MADE BY THE FG (Include a brief about how some previous ASUU demands were
met and what lead to the call-offs. Include previous deadlock meetings and attempts at calling off the
present strike too)
 LEARNING FROM OTHERS (examine how other counties are solving their university funding issues and
see what Nigeria can learn from them)
 WAY OUT OF THE MESS (suggest possible ways to resolve the ASUU-FG conflict)
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TEA BREAK

Write out your topic breakdown for

this essay topic:
Tackling Security Challenges in
Nigeria: Enough is Enough!

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Practice and Perfection: The Science of 19
Writing

 Audience, purpose, and tone

 Decide whom you want to read your article – your audience. Are you writing an essay meant to
be reviewed by a panel of experts? Or for a secondary school notice board? Or to be posted on
Facebook? Getting to know or decide your audience helps to write to suit their level.
 If you are writing an entry for an essay competition, for example, you may want to find out
who the organisers are and what their orientation is. You may also want to find out the people
on the panel of markers.
 Decide the purpose for which you are writing. Your purpose may be one of entertainment,
education, re-orientation, etc.
 Having a target audience and a purpose in mind will help to determine the appropriate tone
for your essay.

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 Paragraphing
 You may also want to include in your layout, the arrangement of your paragraphs. This should
include, the number of paragraphs, and the topic sentence for each paragraph.
 A topic sentence is a rough idea of the particular points you want to discuss in each paragraph.
 Under the WAY OUT THE MESS in my topic breakdown (on slide 15), for example, I may want to
discuss three points, forming a paragraph each. probably:
 Topic sentence 1: FG should increase budget allocation for education
 Topic sentence 2: FG should proscribe ASUU
 Topic sentence 3: Universities should be responsible for generating funds for their expenses
 I would then proceed to explain each point in detail.

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 Word count
 You may also assign a word range to your essay. Say for example your essay should not be
more than a particular number of words (depending on the audience, purpose and type
of essay).
 If writing an entry for an essay competition that you have been given a word count range,
You should distribute the number of words within your paragraphs and topic breakdown.
 Suppose in my example, the maximum number of words I can write is 1500. I can allocate
words to my outlined topic breakdown as follows.

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 OPENING PARAGRAPH 1: 100 words

 INTRODUCTION: 150 words
 HISTORY OF ASUU STRIKES: 200 words
 EFFECT OF THE STRIKES: 250 words
 PREVIOUS EFFORTS MADE BY THE FG: 150 word
 LEARNING FROM OTHERS: 200 word
 WAY OUT OF THE MESS: 300 word
 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION: 150 words

I may not necessarily write exactly the number of words, it’s just a guide.
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LUNCH BREAK

Your word count for the essay “Tackling Security

Challenges in Nigeria: Enough is Enough!” is
1500. Write out how you’d distribute this within
the topic breakdown you’ve written earlier

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Writing

 STRUCTURE
You should structure your essay such that it has:
 Introduction
 Body
 Conclusion

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 Introduction
 There are many ways of opening your essay.
 You may start with a rhetorical question
 You may introduce your article with statistical facts
 You may narrate a short story
 You may introduce a popular quote
 Your introduction may also include a statement of the problem being addressed by the essay
 Whichever style you start with, ensure your introduction is catchy and interesting enough to
make your readers proceed to the body.

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 Body
 Having listed all the topic sentences for your paragraphs, you may then proceed to write each paragraph
by explaining the topic sentence in detail.
 Your paragraphs should be written in a logical order, and properly linked with the use of connectors such
as:
 Additionally, moreover, aside from this, in addition to that, if that is not enough, etc to add more points
to, or buttress the previous paragraph.
 However, in contrast, despite the fact that, unlike, although, even though, contrarily, etc, to show
contrast.
 Consequently, as a result of this, therefore, accordingly, etc to show consequence.
 Summarily, in one sentence, in summary, conclusively, going by these, from the foregoing, in
conclusion, in closing, to wrap it up, all in all, etc to show summary/conclusion.

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 Conclusion
 As your essay is trying to address an issue, your conclusion should not just be a one-or-
two-sentence summary of your essay. It should contain action points, calls to action,
recommendations, and possible effects of such recommendations.

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 FORMATTING
 This is the final, and one of the most essential parts of writing. After writing your essay, you would
like to put some finishing touches by:
 Editing: checking for grammar errors, misspelt words, etc. you should first of all, read the essay to
yourself to see some of the obvious errors. It might be helpful to print the article out in hardcopies
as some errors can dodge you while on the computer screen. You may ask a friend to help you edit
it as well. There are many grammar editing apps you can try too. Some of them are:
 Grammarly
 Proofreader Grammar Checker
 Linguix
 CorrectMe English

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 Paraphrasing: You may find some sentences redundant and want to rewrite them. There
are many online tools you can use for this too.
 QuillBot paraphraser
 Paraphraser.io
 plagiarismdetector.net

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 Others:
 Other ways to put the final touches on your essay include:
 Asking one or two people to read and grade the essay for you. You may also try
paperrater.com
 Adding references to quoted facts. You do not necessarily have to include a list of
references at the end of your article if you are not writing a long essay. Including the
name of the author, book, website, etc alongside the quoted fact will suffice. You may
use citethisforme for standard referencing styles.
 If it is typed, ensure you choose the best font size and style. Do not forget to use the right
spacing and alignment for your paragraphs.

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GARRI BREAK

Write your introductory paragraph to the same

essay topic: Tackling Security Challenges in
Nigeria: Enough is Enough!

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Sustaining the Skills

 Now that you are fortified with the art and science of writing, all that is left is practice and more practice.
 Here are a few ways to do that
 Carve a niche for yourself in writing, choosing from a wide genre. You can check this here for a list of writing
genres you can choose from. https://coursementor.com/blog/types-of-writing-genres/
 Join online writers' groups. There are many WhatsApp groups you can join. Find one and get engaged.
 Join writing challenges. You’d find many of this online too.
 Write at least once a month
 Read some of your old write-ups to rekindle your passion
 Enrol in essay competitions.
 Teach what you know online

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Summary

 Summarily, in this presentation, we have learnt the following:

 How to trigger an interest in writing: By reading, paraphrasing, transcribing, and building a good
relationship with words.
 Setting a layout for your essay: This includes: Topic breakdown; Audience, purpose, and tone;
Paragraphing; and Word count.
 Giving your essay a good structure: This includes how your introduction, body, and conclusion
should look like.
 Putting finishing touches on your write-ups by editing, formatting, paraphrasing, referencing,
etc.
 How to maintain your writing tempo including carving a niche for yourself, joining writer
groups, teaching, entering essay competitions, etc.

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Now that you have been fortified with the art and science of writing, why not treat yourself to a dish of
assorted pepper soup and go out and excel as you write!

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I hope your
expectations have
been met

Yussuf Ayo(dele)
yusfulinks@gmail.com
https://wa.me/+2347058963580/

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