Where have Good Writing Skills Gone?

I just recently posted an article at my site referring people to ‘Fuel Your Writing’ on the basis of this exact concept. We need to improve our writing. We need to fix our spelling and grammar and we need to develop our writing skills.

Of course, whenever I read an article like this, I’m almost afraid to comment because I know that I’m not perfect either and I always fear that there will be a typo or a piece of poor grammar in my comment which will make me look even dumber since we’re discussing good writing.

I know exacly what your talkin about! I see this kind of think every where! People get away with separating words that shouldnt be, lack of puctuation, and terrible spelilng. Its an out rage!

Nice post, Susan.

It’s always a bit upsetting when you see business owners, executives, or other types of professionals making simple grammatical or spelling mistakes in their writing … then again, it’s kind of a nice reminder that writing really isn’t as easy as it’s made out to be. One of my favorite quotes touches on this idea: “Just because a person knows the alphabet doesn’t mean a person knows how to write.”

[warning: rant ahead]

What’s even more upsetting to me is that writers are completely dismissed. I’m sure all of you reading FUEL have experienced, at one point or another, that moment when either a parental figure, a professor, or elder expressed disapproval of your decision to become a writer of some sort. Most of the time, in my experience, this expression is made because of the fact that our society values lawyers, accountants, and engineers above all else … with the exception of the people from Dancing With the Stars of course – they definitely take the cake.

So, when are you going to get a “real job?”

My point is, as a writer, it’s upsetting to see such disrespect for writers when they’re so heavily depended on by our society. It begins when we’re in school – those who do well in math and science are held above those who don’t. In more cases than not, those kids not doing so well in math and science are probably excelling in writing and other artistic areas, but because writing is an artistic medium without a harsh formula and the school system is based on standardized testing, there’s no way – or time for that matter – for teachers to grade written work that goes beyond the accepted formula. While this makes it possible for teachers and school to grade students’ skills in English, it discourages students from excelling beyond the “standard.” In light of this approach, talented young writers who understand the guidelines of writing are usually graded poorly due to their ability to go beyond.

Albeit, there are all forms of teachers – some will try as much as possible to encourage a talented writer while others will simply conform to the standardized grading method.

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Writing communities, like the one here at FUEL, are great places to come together and go beyond the standard, which for a scary amount of talented lawyers, accountants, and engineers … and people from Dancing With the Stars, didn’t do much in terms of writing skills.

Cheers to writers following their heart!

I feel obliged to say the following statement: good writing skills boil down to the faulty school system that’s in this country. Unfortunately, a lot of young kids get out of high school not knowing how to speak well, much less write well.

We may be worried for the writing skills of this generation, however, I fear that the deterioration of proper writing has not reached rock bottom.

What could be worse than subject/verb agreement errors on a university website, on the Arts and Sciences page no less; I know of a school that has several. Also, I once worked for a political candidate who had “Discipline and education is …” on a piece of campaign literature. To make matters worse, several of her “advisors” were public school teachers.