Freelance writing is a good way to make a little extra money while you work your full time job. In fact, some people, once they have years and years of experience, gather enough high paying clients that they can live solely by their pen—or their typewriter so to speak. I’m going to discuss some ways to start out in the freelancing field.
When you begin freelancing, you want to make sure your English and grammar are perfect, and if they are not, you might want to purchase some used, clean copies of exercise books with the answers in the back, which will help you to improve all aspects of your writing, your punctuation, your grammar, and your punctuation usage. All major companies have English proficiency exams and you will want to take these, especially if English is not your first language. Today, a lot of clients insist upon a native speaker of English but if you are not a native speaker of English, then you will want to be able to say in your application letter that even if you are not a native speaker you are just as skilled or better skilled in English than most native speakers. This will take time, of course, but studying the English language and all the complex rules of English punctuation is a necessary stepping stone to actually beginning freelancing. You will never be able to excel to a higher paying bracket if you are not able to pass the myriad tests they have on these sites.
Even native speakers often need work on complex comma rules and rules about dashes, semicolons, and other more complex rules of English composition. No one can fully understand comma usage, for example, until they really understand the parts of speech you cannot separate from one another with a comma and how commas work after introductory paragraphs, dependent clauses, and commas in a series, for example.
Every freelancing agency uses a different kind of documentation system than you have encountered in college. In college everyone uses MLA and APA—but in the freelance world, the Associated Press guidebook is the only guide you need to know. You need to get one of these and study it profusely, as you will want to demonstrate this skill through testing.