There has been a surplus of information these days about writing: writing tips, how-tos, don't, programs, everything!
Ann Friedman gave her great list of tips for writing, book riot is constantly quoting famous authors' beliefs on writing, #writingtips is blowing up.
One of Friedman's tips was 'when you read a good article, consider why you think it is good. The best excercise in journalism school was picking apart articles.' I enjoy this practice, and it is also helpful for some of those poorly written articles too. I cringe, mostly because I used to write like that (probably still do according to most!) and a piece of me dies everytime I recognize the trait inside myself.
I too, used to half read textbooks and then write convoluted essays on theory -- thesauraus by my side. When I did a lot of music writing, you better believe I loved the adjective 'majestic' and used (again) concoluted sentence structure, and just at points boldface lied about points.
But, thankfully, I don't music write anymore, and have had a great influx of help from writers and editors willing to give me some 'realtalk' about writing. I've slowly learned to shake my complacency and ego, and write more coherently.
What techniques do you use for improving writing? Changing styles? Challenging yourself?
note: #badwritingtips is hilarious.