Improving one's writing

good advice

Exactly. Can only echo the above advice. 'Style' can't really get outdated, even if you want recent stuff there's still tons of material floating around on the internet. If you used the advice of researchresearch (nice nickname), I'm sure you'd fine more SS research than you can manage to read.

As for a specific site - I doubt there is one given that research is not free (at least to the general public, sort of is for clients, sort of).

Thanks for posting this researchresearch, this thread will get locked and the links will be closed down by ML, CS and JPM

Problem: Your writing style - No need to get all poetic with your intro like that....

Read editorial section of WSJ. Read Peggy Noonan.

Your writing should have the same voice as if you were speaking to someone.

I doubt you'd ever start off a conversation with an intro like the one in this post. If that is how you talk everyday, then you have a talking problem not a writing problem.

Three things:

1. Strunk and White. This is if you are lazy. But at least it will discourage you from writing that stilted babble at the start of your post.
2. Read good literature. This is if you are serious about writing well. The man who doesn't read much doesn't write much worth reading.
3. Your professor is full of shit. I used to write just like you before it was beaten out of me by my lit and soc sci profs.

Agreed. The intro was unnecessary.

Thanks for the advice.

Eschew obfuscation assiduously!

strunk and whitee

Study for the verbal portion of the GMAT and you'll start seeing errors in everything you read.

Read Hemingway. A lot of Hemingway. Note the simplistic style. That can and should be transferred to academic writing.

Other than that, just read a lot of good lit. If you don't know what good literature is, well... good luck.

Get a subscription to The Economist, and read it every week.

I'm pretty sure you can get a discount being a student.

I actually do, although not religiously. Since I've been interviewing, I've also tried to present an article from The Economist by synthesizing the important points and then presenting it to myself in front of a mirror.

The problem is this:

Time.

I can write decently if I am given the right time constraints. Like most things I do in life, I only write well incrementally. Meaning, I need to consciously think very hard about every sentence and paragraph, and then revise revise revise like a machine.

Unlike some people at my university, I just can't turn in a masterpiece 3 hours before the deadline. When I try to do that, I start writing like a child forgetting everything I've ever learned about writing. The common themes of error are usually: vagueness, unsubstantiated facts, unnecessary quotations, unnecessary qualifiers, poor syntax, and just an overall lack of direction.

Has anyone else faced a similar problem and have drastically improved their writing? I know I need to man up and accept this weakness, but I am willing to do the necessary groundwork to overcome this hurdle.

beta26:

I actually do, although not religiously. Since I've been interviewing, I've also tried to present an article from The Economist by synthesizing the important points and then presenting it to myself in front of a mirror.

The problem is this:

Time.

I can write decently if I am given the right time constraints. Like most things I do in life, I only write well incrementally. Meaning, I need to consciously think very hard about every sentence and paragraph, and then revise revise revise like a machine.

Unlike some people at my university, I just can't turn in a masterpiece 3 hours before the deadline. When I try to do that, I start writing like a child forgetting everything I've ever learned about writing. The common themes of error are usually: vagueness, unsubstantiated facts, unnecessary quotations, unnecessary qualifiers, poor syntax, and just an overall lack of direction.

Has anyone else faced a similar problem and have drastically improved their writing? I know I need to man up and accept this weakness, but I am willing to do the necessary groundwork to overcome this hurdle.

You are actually one of the lucky ones. I think math skills are actually much harder to develop through training. But writing is a lot more imitative at its core. Which is why reading good writing is the key to being a good writer. You probably remember the kids cramming for their SAT vocab section. Well, if they had bothered to read quality books before that point they wouldn't need to. Same with writing. What ultimately makes for a good writer is a person with good ideas and some ability to express them. This has to be learned through imitation. Because good writers have good ideas, they don't need to dress it up with a bunch of fluff and twisted language. It flows nicely. As Samuel Johnson said, if you look at a sentence you have written and are congratulating yourself on how fine it is, strike it out immediately, because it is for your gratification and not the reader's benefit.

You are way too young to not have time for this. There are people who pick up languages as adults and write beautifully in them (e.g., Joseph Conrad).

I am not trying to browbeat you, because I know where you are coming from. My foreign language skills are shitty. I have enough space in my head for one language and that's English. I can't write a Spanish composition to save my life. But if I were to need to, I'd be reading Garcia-Marquez and other good authors in their original language.