❓ What are the Pros And Cons Of Online Writing Courses?

Here are some important Pros and Cons of Online Writing Classes: Pros: These courses are meant for independent study, so you can learn at your own pace. Some courses do not even have homework assignments, writing exercises, or time constraints. Online courses give you exclusive information and learning materials. You are able to interact and learn with other writers using online communities, which helps you learn to write skills. Cons: Online writing course sometimes not allows any personal touch of classroom writing courses. You will never have face-to-face interactions with associate learners. Some online writing courses have no instructor feedback. The quality and price of online writing courses vary greatly.

⚡ What is the best app for writing letters?

Here are some of the best writing apps which help you to write professional letters: Grammarly: Grammarly is a widely used writing enhancement tool. It offers numerous writing styles, suggestions for grammar, vocabulary, and syntax. You can use this tool via the website, as a browser extension, or as an app that you can download to your computer. Prowritingaid: Prowritingaid is a tool that offers a world-class grammar and style checking facility. It helps you to edit documents faster. This software includes more than 1000 styles to improve your writing skills. Microsoft Word: Microsoft Word is a writing app that helps you transform documents into web pages. It offers a real-time translation facility with just one tap. This program enables you to read and edit documents attached to the email. Calmlywriter: Calmlywriter is free writing software. This online application is designed to help you focus on your writing skills. It has a "focus mode" option that can highlight the paragraph you are writing. FocusWriter: It is a writing tool that enables you to access the interface by moving the mouse to the edge of the screen. The software helps you to translate the content into more than 20 languages. It helps correct spelling effortlessly.

10 Best FREE Online Writing Courses with Certificates (2024)

There are many beginner professionals who want to improve their writing skills and get ahead in their writing careers. Moreover, it is also not feasible for working professionals to go back to school and improve their scribing skills. Thankfully, you will find many online writing classes on the Internet that help you polish and enhance your writing and authoring skills.

Following is a handpicked list of the Top Online Writing Courses & Certifications to gather knowledge about this subject. The list contains both open source (free) and commercial (paid) courses.

BEST Free Online Writing Courses for Creative Writers & Beginners

Course Name	Provider	Price	Key Topics	Links
Good with Words: Writing and Editing Specialization	Coursera	Free	Writing skills	Learn More
Creative Writing Specialization	Coursera	Free	Creative writing	Learn More
Creative Writing: Crafting Personal Essays with Impact	Skillshare	1-month free trial	Creative writing	Learn More
Secret Sauce of Great Writing	Udemy	Free	Skill writing	Learn More
Essay Essentials: Improve Your Academic Writing	Udemy	Free	Academic	Learn More

1) Good with Words: Writing and Editing Specialization (Coursera)

Specs: Duration: 4 hours a week | Pricing: Free | Certificate on Completion: Yes | Level: Beginner | Mobile apps: iOS and Android

Articles effectively communicate complex ideas and stories in a friendly, credible, and easy-to-follow way. This course, Good with Words, helps you learn how to write and publish an article of your own.

This free writing course explains how you can determine your writing approach, pitch your story to a publication, completely research your subject matter, and write and polish your article content. This course also discusses how you can submit a complete package to editors.

It is one of the best free online writing courses for new writers. It helps you to learn the skills you need to write a well-crafted article that connects with readers.

Key Topics:

Determining Your Article Writing Approach
Techniques for adding nuance to your sentences and slogans
Creative ways to use syntax
Polishing and Submitting Your Article
Promoting Your work

Enroll Now >>

2) Creative Writing Specialization (Coursera)

Specs: Duration: Approx. 6 months to complete (1 hour/week) | Pricing: Free | Certificate on Completion: Yes | Level: Beginner | Languages: English, Arabic, French, Portuguese (European), Serbian, Chinese

This Creating Writing specialization course covers three important elements of writing genres: short story, narrative essay, and memoir.

In this course, you will master the techniques that any good writer uses to create a story full of memorable characters. This beginner’s writing workshop also helps you to analyze and constructively evaluate peer writing. It is one of the best writing courses designed for anyone, from aspiring short story writers to established novelists.

Key Topics:

The Craft of Plot
The Craft of Character
Setting and Description
The Craft of Style

Features:

Self-Paced learning option for students
HD quality course videos
Practice quizzes
Graded assignments with peer feedback
Quizzes with Feedback
Programming assignments

Enroll Now >>

3) Creative Writing: Crafting Personal Essays with Impact (Skillshare)

Specs: Duration: 1 hour 1 minute | Certificate on Completion: Yes | Level: Intermediate

Creative Writing is an online proofreading course that shows how to give your writing more impact, regardless of its purpose. In this online course, the writer and journalist Tom Geller help you to search reasons for writing with the demonstration. The writer also teaches you how to use those reasons to drive the words you select and the tone you take.

The author of this course also shares his understanding of grammar and sentence structure for writing with maximum impact. After completing this free online writing course, you will be equipped with plenty of practical writing tips to make your writing clear and crisp.

Key Topics:

Meaning of writing with impact
Learning about your Readers
Understanding How People Read
Key Idea: Looking Inward and Outward

Features:

Helps you qualify for continuing education units.
Professional author instructor.
Certificate on completion.

Enroll Now >>

4) Secret Sauce of Great Writing (Udemy)

Specs: Rating: 4.5 | Duration: 41 minutes of on-demand video | Pricing: Free | Certificate on Completion: Yes | Level: Intermediate

Secret Sauce of Great Writing is a course designed by Shani Raja. This course will teach you the four main concepts of good writing: Simplicity, Clarity, Elegance, and Evocativeness. It will also help you learn how to add those ingredients skillfully.

At the end of this online writing course, you will have a good grasp of how professional writers create powerful and beautiful prose. In this online writing course, you can quickly identify your writing weaknesses, understand the principles, and fix and improve it significantly.

Key Topics:

The Secret Sauce of Flair
The Four Crucial Ingredients
How I Discovered the Sauce
The Power of Simplicity
Simplicity Exercises
The Power of Clarity
Clarity Exercises
The Power of Elegance
Elegance Exercises
The Power of Evocativeness
Evocativeness Exercises

Features:

Online video content
Instructor Q&A
Instructor direct message

Enroll Now >>

5) Essay Essentials: Improve Your Academic Writing (Udemy)

Specs: Rating: 4.4 | Duration: 1hr 14min of on-demand video | Certificate on Completion: Yes

Essay Essentials: Improve Your Academic Writing is a video course that helps you learn how to write essays. This free writer’s course will help you find the essay writing success you deserve by learning essay writing foundations.

Key Topics:

How the writing situation, process, and classroom resources.
Brainstorm to create and use ideas that help you to develop the essay.
Develop and structure introduction and conclusion paragraphs.
Write a clear, specific, and well-connected thesis.
Understand the organization of essay paragraphs.
How to create detailed, specific, and appropriate content.
Proof-read spelling and grammatical errors using helpful rules and tips.

Features:

Online video content
Certificate of completion accredited by universities.
Instructor Q&A
Instructor direct message

Enroll Now >>

6) Writing With Confidence: Writing Beginner To Writing Pro (Udemy)

Specs: Duration: 5 hours 50 minutes | Pricing: $24.99 | Certificate on Completion: Yes | Level: Intermediate | Mobile apps: iOS and Android

Writing With Confidence is an online course that helps you create ad copy that effectively conveys your brand and drives traffic to convert clicks into sales. The course designer Michael Duquet also teaches you the rules for writing ads for different platforms.

The author of this course, Clare Lynch, explains how you can change your message and tone according to your target audience and customer personality.

In the last chapters, you will learn about Create musical sentences that readers can’t resist.

Key Topics:

Rules of Ad Copy Writing
Ad Copy Goals
Writing Ad Copy for various media
Understanding Your Audience
Personas and Tone
Do and Don’ts.

Enroll Now >>

7) Craft Your Cover Letter (Udacity)

Specs: Duration: Approx. 1 Day | Pricing: Free | Certificate on Completion: Yes | Level: Beginner

Craft Your Cover Letter is a short course where you will learn to use proven writing techniques to show why you are the best person to do this job.

In these writing classes for beginners, you will also learn how to research company values, target your writing pitch, and develop an authentic story. It offers the research and writing tools you need to show why you are the best person for the specific job!

Key Topics:

Target your applications to specific opportunities.
Students are able to understand the purpose of a cover letter.
Write an effective introduction, body, and conclusion.

Features:

Rich Learning Content
Interactive Quizzes
Instructor videos
Learn by doing exercises.
Taught by industry professionals.

Enroll Now >>

8) Write a Book! (Udemy)

Specs: Rating: 4.3 | Duration: 30 hours on-demand video | Certificate on Completion: Yes

Write a Book is an online writing course offered by Udemy. This course explains how to organize and begin writing a short story, novel, or nonfiction book with concepts similar for each form. This online course is ideal for someone looking to grasp the fundamentals of writing using the English language.

Key Topics:

Learn to write basics, like including punctuation, sentences, paragraphs, etc.
Learn about advanced writing techniques.
Learn to write short nonfiction books.
The advanced dialog to draw the reader into your story.
How to use MS PowerPoint to create a book cover.
How to discover your writing style.
Learn how to self-edit your book manuscript.

Features:

28 articles
Full lifetime access for students
Access on mobile and TV
Certificate of completion

Enroll Now >>

9) The Complete Freelance Writing Course (Udemy)

Udemy offers a wide range of writing courses. This Complete Freelance Writing Course can be viewed on all devices connected to the Internet. You do not require any prequalification to take this course.

Udemy is an online platform that helps you create courses for business, writing, design, marketing, etc. You can develop new skills and achieve your goals by taking training and learning from the extensive library of various Udemy courses.

Features:

Understand different forms of writing styles and methods as per target audience.
Learn best practices for Blog Writing.
Learn how to do screenwriting to tell a compelling story.
Develop methods that help you to stay productive as a writer.

Key Courses:

Grant Writing for Nonprofits and Freelance Writers
The Complete Freelance Writing Course
How to Start a Freelance Writing Career
The Complete Freelance Writing Online
Freelance Copywriting: Write Dirty. Go Big
How to Start Profitable Freelance Writing Business in 5 Weeks

Enroll Now >>

10) Online Creative Writing Classes (Skillshare)

Skillshare is an online course platform that is focused on education. It includes various topics related to graphic design, data science, e-commerce, analytics, etc. This online course will expand your horizons to learn more about creative writing. You can try these online classes that teach about creative writing techniques, tools, and topics like character development, outlining, storytelling, creating a compelling plot, and how you can make your words more artful.

This course helps you to enhance and helps you to create character-driven stories with creative writing prompts. This online class is broken down into short lessons that include hands-on projects to complete and share.

Features:

Learn creative writing in various genres like fiction, poetry, humor, etc.
It helps you to find classes that are designed for real life.
Get ideas for writing daily journals.
Real creators teach the classes.
You can learn from any device.

Enroll Now >>

11) Write A Feature Length Screenplay For Film Or Television (Coursera)

Write A Feature Length Screenplay For Film Or Television teaches you how to write a feature-length screenplay for film or television or web-series. In this screen playwriting course, you will also learn to break down the creative process into components. You will also discover a structured process that helps you produce a polished and pitch-ready script.

Completing this online course helps you to improve your confidence in your ideas and abilities. After learning this online course, you will feel prepared to pitch your first script and start with the next one.

Key Topics:

Creating The Idea.
Logline and Dramatic Question.
Create your character profile.
The Three Act Story Arc.
Screenplay Formatting and Software.
Begin your screenplay.
Write the final section.
Table read your entire script.
Finishing things up.

Enroll Now >>

12) Start Writing Fiction (Future learn)

Specs: Rating: 4.7

Start Writing Fiction is a course that helps you to create how to develop your ideas, which reflect on your writing and editing. This online writing class is intended for those interested in writing fiction or improving their fiction writing.

Key Topics:

Creation of characters in fiction
Different sources for characters in stories
Ways of presenting characters in stories
Reading as a writer
Writing skill like creativity, research, observation, and editing

Features:

It provides the freedom to keep access to any online course you’ve achieved a digital certificate of.
It offers the flexibility to complete your choice of short courses in your own time within the year.

Link: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/start-writing-fiction

13) English Writing Skills–Revised (Alison)

English Writing skills is a free online English language course that will guide you through the most important English writing styles. It shows you how and when to apply each one verb and improve your knowledge about the correct usage of punctuation and grammar.

This online writing course helps you express yourself clearly and effectively in your writing. This online learning material also helps you fulfill your dream of becoming a professional writer or improving your English writing.

Key Topics:

English Writing Skills
English-Writing
Story Writing
Descriptive Writing
Science Fiction, Nonfiction, Instructional, Opinionative
Reflective Writing

Link: https://alison.com/course/english-writing-skills-revised

Other Useful Programming Resources you may like to explore

FAQ:

Here are some important guidelines for selecting an online writing course:

A. Identity your goal:

First, you need to find out your goal. Like you want to learn basic writing skills like improving your grammar, you want to learn notification writing, fiction writing, nonfiction writing, etc.

B. Set your course budget:

Then you need to decide yourself how much money you want to spend, both in terms of time and money. There are many free online writing courses. However, if you want to learn an advanced creative writing course, then you need to pay for that.

C. Pick a Commitment Level:

It is certainly the most important aspect for selecting the online writing course. How much daily or weekly time can you spend learning the course. There are many online courses that are completely self-paced, which means you work through the material on your own and take time as much as you want.

Here are some important Pros and Cons of Online Writing Classes:

Pros:

These courses are meant for independent study, so you can learn at your own pace.
Some courses do not even have homework assignments, writing exercises, or time constraints.
Online courses give you exclusive information and learning materials.
You are able to interact and learn with other writers using online communities, which helps you learn to write skills.

Cons:

Online writing course sometimes not allows any personal touch of classroom writing courses.
You will never have face-to-face interactions with associate learners.
Some online writing courses have no instructor feedback.
The quality and price of online writing courses vary greatly.

Here are some of the best writing apps which help you to write professional letters:

Grammarly: Grammarly is a widely used writing enhancement tool. It offers numerous writing styles, suggestions for grammar, vocabulary, and syntax. You can use this tool via the website, as a browser extension, or as an app that you can download to your computer.
Prowritingaid: Prowritingaid is a tool that offers a world-class grammar and style checking facility. It helps you to edit documents faster. This software includes more than 1000 styles to improve your writing skills.
Microsoft Word: Microsoft Word is a writing app that helps you transform documents into web pages. It offers a real-time translation facility with just one tap. This program enables you to read and edit documents attached to the email.
Calmlywriter: Calmlywriter is free writing software. This online application is designed to help you focus on your writing skills. It has a “focus mode” option that can highlight the paragraph you are writing.
FocusWriter: It is a writing tool that enables you to access the interface by moving the mouse to the edge of the screen. The software helps you to translate the content into more than 20 languages. It helps correct spelling effortlessly.

There are many free creative writing courses that help you to learn how to express yourself in words. A free writing course gives you training about general grammar, writing style, and other important stuff related to writing instead of teaching any specific fiction, nonfiction, or scientific writing skills.