Language, writing, and culture
Michael Wilmeth

If you are seeking to study or work using English, you are taking on the challenge of mastering that language, alongside the challenges involved in your area of study or your career. Even for native speakers of a language, command of spoken and written expression is one of the main factors promoting success, and few native English speakers ever attain a really high level of mastery of their own language. As a non-native English speaker, you begin at a disadvantage, but consciously making a project of improving your English can give you an edge over those who assume that their present linguistic skills are adequate. During the process of applying to schools or employers, writing ability is particularly important because while your academic record, test scores, and work experience reveal a lot about your capabilities, your writing gives the best insight into what kind of person you are and how well you will communicate with teachers, classmates, employers, co-workers and clients. What you say and how you say it gives those who cannot meet you in person but have to evaluate you a way to feel acquainted with you as a person. Once you have begun study abroad or taken a job, how effectively you can communicate your ideas will have a great deal to do with the progress you are able to make in your chosen field, and with your happiness as a person.
Good writing and lucid communication depend, of course, not only on grasping correct usage but also understanding something of the culture you are going to be operating in. Language and culture are complexly interwoven, and advancing your understanding in one will inevitably also improve your ability in the other. Perhaps your toughest writing tasks will be those you do before leaving China, because at that point you will not have been immersed in the culture of the country you mean to study or work in. Even for these tasks, though, you can give yourself an advantage by acquainting yourself with the society in which you intend to work, and more specifically with the best writing of that society.

Clarity, Grace, and Power

In working on your English writing skills, your first priority should be clarity. This means, first of all, correct grammar and syntax and accurate use of words. This is the sort of thing one learns in the classroom, but if you are going to work or study in English you have to refine your understanding beyond what you are likely to develop in school. This means, for instance, knowing when the word "the" is needed, and when it is not and therefore distracting, or getting a sense of the connotations, rather than merely the definitions, of English words. While as a native speaker of Chinese there are certain problems that you are likely to have in attaining clarity in your use of English, native speakers of English, too, must be attentive in order to be really clear in their communication. Attaining real clarity in writing will prevent misunderstandings and allow you to be confident in getting your intended message across.
A step beyond clarity is writing with grace. To write gracefully means not just saying what you mean, but saying it concisely, without jargon or verbal clutter, with the tone you intend and with care for the sound and rhythm of your sentences and paragraphs. Graceful writing flows. It is shapely. It does not distract the reader from the message being communicated, and is easy and pleasant to read. A graceful piece of writing can communicate its message far more effectively than a merely correct and clear piece of writing and bespeaks the sensitivity of the writer.
Clear, graceful writing is often enough. But when your message is important to you, and you need to persuade others of what you are saying, you want your writing to be powerful as well. To write with power you must have well-defined and well-organized ideas and express them with vigor. Concretely, power in writing can flow from use of the right words, especially verbs, or from the cogency of the structure behind the writing. Powerful writing pulls the reader along and makes the message compelling.
Developing clarity, grace, and power in writing is complex, of course, and is a long-term project, but in the final analysis it comes down to what words you use, how long or short your sentences are and how they sound, how you group sentences into paragraphs and how one paragraph leads to the next. Excellent writing may seem mysterious, but it always comes from skillful use of the basic elements of language. Whether you are working on perfecting your understanding of grammar or learning to bring poetry to your prose, you can improve by attentiveness and effort, by reading, and by receiving thoughtful criticism of your own compositions. Reading good English writing and seeking contact with native English speakers who can help you refine your English skills will help you make the transition from classroom English to real world English. The effort you put into improving your English communication will serve you well, whatever field you choose to pursue.

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