Simple Writing Styles: An Honest Guide to Effective Writing

Simple writing styles are how writers expresses themselves. They include grammar, punctuation, spelling, sentence length, and word choice.

A Quick Look at Formal and Informal Writing Styles

What do we mean by formal and informal writing styles? Informal writing can be for everyday use. On the other hand, more attention and care is necessary for formal writing.

These styles refer to how the writer constructs words and sentences.

For example, formal writing relies on a conservative grammar structure and avoids slangs altogether. Meanwhile, an informal writer will use words that are more common in speech than in writing.

In other words, they don’t maintain the traditional format and tone of the words.

There are several aspects that identify a piece of writing as either formal or informal. The primary goal of all writing is conveying an idea to your readers as plainly as possible.

The writer must also focus on the information that the reader needs to know. Therefore, the writing has to be clear and understandable.

Knowing the four main writing techniques can ensure you have the knowledge and skills for the primary simple writing styles.

First, let’s consider what a simple writing style means.

What is a Simple Writing Style or Technique?

A simple writing style is how an author conveys their message in a meaningful and effective manner to their audience. It often begins with an in-depth understanding of your audience.

Writers have to tailor their writing styles to appeal to specific readers.

For example, are you writing for an academic audience, a young one, or a more general audience? Whomever the readers may be, you can adapt your writing approach to better connect with them.

Also, it is vital to know what you are trying to communicate and the purpose of your writing. This will help you choose the best writing style for your piece.

That brings us to the four simple writing styles.

An empty notebook and pencil indicating that simple writing styles are sometimes better
Empty notebook for writing photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash

What are the Four Simple Writing Styles?

The four main writing approach are descriptive, expository, narrative, and persuasive writing.

The ability to understand the different writing styles and the specific purpose of each one is a key component of communication skills. It provides a quick way to improve your writing skills.

The style of a writer’s work reflects their unique voice, personality, and approach to audiences and readers. As such, it’s vital for all writers to know all four style and their usages.

1. Descriptive writing

The main purpose of descriptive writing is to describe. This writing style meticulously describes a place, an event, or a character. If the author is very specific and takes time to closely describe their work, it can be evocative.

This writing style describes a number of locations, situations, events, people, or places in a deeply detailed manner. The author imagines seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, or feeling what they are describing.

If the writer carefully details things in the work, the reader may feel a strong emotion from the work. By using this simple writing style, you as the author can illustrate the work and create an atmosphere in the mind of the reader.

This highlights the main purpose of the descriptive writing style. Your readers should be able to follow your story with clear visualizations when you use this style.

2. Expository writing

Writing that informs or explain is expository. It discusses a topic without providing personal opinions.

Explaining is the main purpose of expository writing. A subject-based style, it tells you about a given subject or topic without voicing the author’s personal opinion.

An expository writing example is an article that provides relevant facts and figures without including the author’s opinions. Another instance of such writing style is an informative book and scientific journal reviews.

Regardless of its form, the primary goal of any expository essay is to provide useful information.

3. Narrative writing

Narrative writing consists of telling a story.

As an author, you may create different characters and tell your audience what happens to them. You can also write from the perspective of one of the characters called first person narration.

Narrative writing asks the question — “What happened next?”. What’s more, motivational events, thrilling action, and conflicts are prominent in this writing style.

When telling a story, the author should focus on using a tone that’ll engage the audience. That means the narration and dialogue should be authentic and easy to follow.

4. Persuasive writing

Persuasive writing as the name suggests, is designed to persuade and convince. It differs from expository writing which does not contain the author’s biases or opinions.

To convince others, persuasive writing includes justification and reasoning. Persuasive writing commonly appears in adverts, affiliate marketing pitches, cover letters, and newspaper pieces.

As an author, you want readers to agree with you on a specific issue. That’s why you need arguments, justifications, and reasons in persuasive writing.

A simple writing style like persuasive writing normally requests that readers do something regarding the matter. The usual term for this is a call-to-action.

An author using a black typewriter because using this with her writing style is effective
Personal writing style photo by Thom Milkovic on Unsplash

How do I find my writing style?

It is possible for authors to differ in their writing styles. Indeed, that’s usually the case.

Your creativity comes from using your art as something that can evoke feelings in others. People can laugh while reading a book, be transported on a journey, or learn new interesting things.

Learning how to write can also come from inspiration. Reading other works can help you discover which writing style is for you. Indeed, a few writers discover their writing style by studying other text.

With that in mind, here are some tips to help find your writing style:

Tips to discover your writing style

  • Your writing style can be found through reading a lot
  • Be honest about who you are
  • Express yourself fully to demonstrate your writing style

The best software to help with writing style

The INK AI software can help you discover the writing style for you. The specialized software is able to write, paraphrase and shorten your articles. This will allow you to see what you like and what can be omitted.

INK have made the writing process easy for all users.

Writers can analyze the writing piece and change and remove whatever they don’t like. You discover whether you like the descriptive, expository, narrative, or persuasive style.

Your writing style, through a lot of reading, can easily be discovered. However, INK AI technology can easily assist you, so all you have to do is write.

Person struggling with what to write because they lack style and direction
Struggle writer photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Why are Writing Styles Important?

You should write your original work in a way that conveys your message to other readers. As an author, you need to use your sentence structure, syntax, and general voice to create a specific tone or mood.

Your writing style is the manner in which your text comes across to other readers,

Each writer has a natural style which varies according to the project — news story, fiction, or college essay. However, it’s essential to maintain a level consistency to match your project.

You can tweak specific nuances and aesthetics to achieve your desired writing style. These include mood, tone, word choice, syntax, and wordiness.

Final Word

You can quickly discover and explore the various simple writing styles that we discussed in this article.

Choosing the correct style could make all the difference when considering how to reach your audience. So take the time to research and draft a content that fits into your style of writing.

Alternately, you could let AI do all the work — automate content writing with INK.

Pam is an expert grammarian with years of experience teaching English, writing and ESL Grammar courses at the university level. She is enamored with all things language and fascinated with how we use words to shape our world.

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