The Value of Writing Well
It’s that time of year again. No, not “the holiday season”. I mean, it is holiday time, but for professors it doesn’t start feeling like holiday time until final grades are in and the books are closed on another semester. No, for me, it’s paper-grading time, the time of year when I’m reminded over and over of the importance of good writing skills – and of their rarity.
The ability to write well is not a gift. Sure, the special something that sets apart a Tolstoy or Shakespeare or Salman Rushdie or Isabel Allende is a gift, a talent born of disposition, experience, and commitment. But just to be able to communicate clearly with the written word takes no special talent; it’s a skill like any other.
Well, not exactly like any other. Because the words we use to write with are the same words we use to think with, learning to write well has ramifications that go beyond the merely technical. As we improve our writing ability, we improve our ability to think – to build an argument, to frame issues in compelling ways, to weave apparently unrelated facts into a coherent whole.
And despite the recurring hand-wringing and chest-beating about the “end of literacy” and the “death of the printed word”, the reality is that we write more than ever these days. While it’s a rare person who sits down with pen and paper in hand and writes a letter to a friend or loved one, we pour emails into the ether at an astounding rate. We text message, tweet, instant message, blog, comment, and otherwise shoot words at each other in a near-constant flow of communication. We annotate group portraits, LOL-ify cat pictures, and tag… well, everything. At work, we write letters, proposals, PowerPoint presentations, business requirement documents, memos, speeches, mission statements, position papers, operating procedures, manuals, brochures, package copy, press releases, and dozens of more specialized types of documents.
We are, it seems, writing creatures. Homo scribus, if you will.
It’s no wonder that businesses repeatedly cite “communication skills” as the single most desirable trait in new employees. The kicker, though, is that we are as a society incredibly bad at writing. Public schools do a piss-poor job of teaching students how to write well – they barely manage to instill the basic rules of grammar and the miserable 5-paragraph essay, let alone how to write with style and verve, how to put together an argument that moves steadily from one point to the next to persuade a reader of some crucial point, how to synthesize ideas and data from multiple sources into something that takes those ideas one step further.
It’s not just the teachers’ fault. Teachers do the best they can with what they’re given, and all too often what they’re given is inadequate resources with which to teach classrooms full of unmotivated students who could care less about writing. Add to that the requirements of mandatory nation-wide tests that reward conformity, not creativity, and the threat of punishment for any school whose students fail to fall within the fairly rigid boundaries of the test’s requirements, and you’ve got a pretty bad situation all around for instilling in students the power to write well.
That is, alas, a great disservice. Being able to write well vastly improves students’ – and others’ – potential for success, regardless of the field they find themselves in. As I’ve already mentioned, people who write well tend to be better able to think through problems and tease out patterns in outwardly dissimilar situations. More importantly, people who write well have the opportunity to make a mark in the world, because their best ideas aren’t trapped in their own minds for lack of a means of expression.
This is true whether you’re a CEO or a janitor, a marketing expert or an Emergency Medical Technician. The skills that make us better writers make us better explainers, better persuaders, and better thinkers. They are the skills that allow us to “sell” our ideas effectively, whether in giving a presentation to potential funders of our company, proposing a new project to our corporate leadership, or transmitting a new policy to our employees. Being able to write well lessens the chance that we’ll be misunderstood, and increases the likelihood that our ideas will be adopted.
Writing well is not a gift reserved for the few but a set of skills that can be learned by anyone. The technical aspects can be learned in any of several ways: by taking a class, by studying books on writing, by working with a partner or a group and acting on their feedback. But while grammar and structure are an important part of writing, to write well also demands some effort to develop style. Style is what keeps people reading past the first sentence, and what keeps what you’ve written on their minds, impelling them to take action.
Style is rather less teachable than the nuts and bolts of writing, but it is learnable. It demands patience, attention, and most of all practice, but it is possible for anyone who has something to say to learn how to say it well. To move from being merely capable to being a good writer, you need only:
- Read: Reading is essential to good writing. It is how we learn the vastness of the language and the limits of the grammar – and how to push those limits. The more you read, the greater your understanding of language’s potential becomes.
- Write: Good writing takes practice. Unfortunately, unless we create opportunities to write, we get far too few opportunities to get that practice after we’ve left school. Start a journal, a blog, a newsletter, or whatever else you can think of to get you writing on at least a semi-regular basis.
- Read Again: Most people who fail to become better writers fail because they do not read their own writing. They don’t read it before they post/mail/submit/publish/otherwise finish it, and they don’t read it after they’re done with it. Which means they don’t see the awkward parts, the flat bits, the pieces that say something different from what was intended – and they never learn how to fix or, better yet, avoid those problems.
- Repeat: Writing is personal, and seeing your writing ill-received can strike a blow to the strongest of egos. The only answer for it, though, is persistence – the goal is to become a better writer, not to be perfect out of the gate. Pay attention to criticism, learn from it, but don’t internalize it – there’s no shame in writing poorly, only in failing to try to do better next time.
Today’s world is a world of text; it is the lifeblood of the information economy. In Ancient Rome, it was the orators who ruled, those who could compel obedience, loyalty, and devotion with their spoken words. Today, the written word is dominant, not only because so much of the information that shapes our lives is written down, but because the habits that make us good writers are the same habits that allow us to flourish in the information economy. If you worry about your writing ability, commit yourself now to becoming a solid writer in the year to come. If you are already a decent writer, commit yourself to becoming better. And if you’re one of the rare few who write well, reach out to those around you and share your talent, so that others may learn from you. Let that be your gift this holiday season.
WRITER'S BIOGRAPHY
Dustin Wax
Dustin M. Wax is a freelance writer and project manager at Stepcase Lifehack. He is also the creator of The Writer's Technology Companion, a site devoted to the tools of the writing trade. When he's not writing, he teaches anthropology and gender studies in Las Vegas, NV. He is the author of Don't Be Stupid: A Guide to Learning, Studying, and Succeeding at College.
Follow him on Twitter: @dwax.
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Comments
Trevor says on December 8th, 2008 at 11:28 am
I’ve always been taught, you just need to write well enough so the other person understands what you’re talking about.
Patrick Budowski says on December 8th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
You hit this one right on the head. I am guilty of being a poor writer.
Leisureguy says on December 8th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Writing well is to a great extent revising/editing well what you have written. It’s important to separate the writing (the creative outpouring) from revising/editing: if you try to revise/edit as you go, you soon will find yourself blocked.
The best way to learn to revise well that I have found is to work through the examples in The Reader Over Your Shoulder, by Robert Graves and Alan Hodge. The idea is to work on the example passage enough so that you understand what the problems are and have made your revisions, and then immediately read what Graves and Hodge found and how they revised it. Your own efforts more or less prepare your mind to understand better and grasp what they are telling you. There are scores of examples—by the time you get to the end (one a day will take 3 months), you will have mastered the editing stage.
For more information and for downloadable examples to work on, see this post, which contains a link to download the examples file.
Krys slovacek says on December 8th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
I wrote about this very topic a while ago, though not nearly as in-depth as this post is. Regardless, below is a link in case anyone is curious!
http://krysslovacek.wordpress......rty-pants/
Moe says on December 8th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Your premise is on target. Writing well is extremely important. In addition to helping one communicate effectively, it’s a key way one can be distinguished from peers.
Regarding style, I would add conciseness. Being able to say something clearly in few words is a great advantage. (I think this article could have been half as long.)
Excellent book: “On Writing Well,” by William Zinsser. http://tinyurl.com/5ooo82
Another: Stephen King’s (yes, that Stephen King) “On Writing.” http://tinyurl.com/5sd342
Stephen Martile says on December 8th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Hi Dustin,
I really liked this line:
“As we improve our writing ability, we improve our ability to think – to build an argument, to frame issues in compelling ways, to weave apparently unrelated facts into a coherent whole.” ~ Dustin Wax
There is so much truth to this, yet I never would have really understood the genius in this if I hadn’t been an experienced writer.
Thanks for the reminder,
Southpark says on December 8th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/
Jeremy Day says on December 9th, 2008 at 12:49 am
Hi Dustin,
This is a great inspiring post. Well written by a well read author. ;-) This really inspired me to take my writing style to the next level!
Cheers,
Jeremy
LifeMadeGreat | Juliet says on December 9th, 2008 at 1:06 am
Hi
I really enjoyed this post of yours. Love your writing style.
I’m in the new-blogger boat and am still very much developing my style. Actually, somehow I feel it is more than that: I am still developing my online voice.
Do you have any ideas about the latter?
Juliet
Vincent says on December 9th, 2008 at 5:02 am
Hi Dustin,
I always re read my article before posting it so that mistakes can be corrected before showing it to my readers. Great tips and thanks for sharing.
Cheers
Vincent
Personal Development Blogger
Dustin Wax says on December 9th, 2008 at 6:39 am
Trevor: “I’ve always been taught, you just need to write well enough so the other person understands what you’re talking about.”
I disagree. While there are contexts in which that might be the case — writing assembly instructions, for example — most writing is intended to be persuasive or to otherwise inspire a course of action. That’s where style comes into play — being able to determine when a conversational tone is best, versus when something more formal is called for, as an example. In the end, there are dozens, hundreds, even thousands of ways to say the same thing; knowing which way to actually say it is the difference between “just well enough” and powerful writing.
Vincent: Catching errors is important but it’s the least of the reasons for re-reading. Frankly, an error here and there, so long as it doesn’t cloud meaning, isn’t a huge problem — think how many published books you’ve read with typos in them! (Don’t get me wrong: as Tevye would say, there’s no shame in an error or two, but it’s no great honor either!)
But the value in re-reading isn’t so much in seeing how to write it *correctly* but rather in figuring out how to write it *better*. The brain is a tricky beast — a lot of times the way words sound in our heads as we’re writing isn’t actually what ends up on the page — when that happens, we get unclarity, annoying repetition, awkward rambling sentences, and so on. For me, I know that anything I write will be better if I can take the time to cut about 1/3 and re-write about another third. When I write for publication, I usually overshoot my word count by about 60% — writing 1600 words for a 1000-word assignment, say. It is in cutting that down to my assigned word count that the real shape of the piece emerges.
This metaphor just occurred to me: writing is a lot like sculpting. First, you have to go down in the bogs and riverbanks and haul up a bunch of clay, which you shape roughly into the form your final piece will take. That’s the rough draft part — the editing consists of cutting away everything that obscures the final form, and reforming the details until the clearest expression of the artist’s/writer’s thought is all that’s left.
Half-baked, but I think there’s something to that…
Dustin Wax says on December 9th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Juliet: Voice — that mysterious quality that marks a piece of writing as *yours* — is part of style, and I think it, too, has to be developed over time. I think of it the way I hear photographers talking developing or retouching photos; they talk about it as making the image on the paper match the image they had in their heads when they took the picture. In writing, it’s the same — there’s the way something sounds in our head as we’re reading it and the way it reads on paper, and the best writers manage to get those two experiences pretty close to each other.
Voice is really important in blogging, as it’s essentially what people read your site for — as opposed to the millions of others. But aside from trying hard to keep your tone conversational and honest, I’m not sure how to actively pursue the refinement of your voice.
Danielle says on December 9th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
I’m in my first year of university and I am astounded by the number of my fellow student who still struggle with there/their/they’re and other basic grammar rules and spelling. I know that I am able to communicate effectively NOT because of the education I received as a high school student in Ontario, but rather as a result of a completely independent self-education which focused on literary classics, poetry and essays. I find that proper grammar and a well-developed vocabulary makes professors and potential employers take me much more seriously than my fellow students. I really pity them and I am so tempted to just walk up to them and put some Dostoyevksy or Steinbeck in their hands and yell, “Read it!” – but I doubt it would do much good.
Reading is definitely key. I personally come from the school of though that it isn’t sufficient to just read – what you read must be at a high enough level to challenge you otherwise you aren’t learning anything.
Mary McKinney says on December 9th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
And it is always useful to re-read “The Elements of Style” every year or two.
Silke (Organized Diva) says on December 10th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
I’ve been blogging a short while. It is only through continuous writing, editing, rewriting, etc. that am I getting better. I have always been an avid reader of both fiction and non-fiction, which has helped, but getting back to normal, non-business writing was difficult. It takes a lot of practice. Outsiders’ reviews of what I write have also been very beneficial. They have helped me to write in ways that are clear to others.
Thanks for the post.
a-point says on December 15th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
I am an English learner. What you mentioned here is exactly applicable to ESL students. People who cannot write well speak only broken-English. However some people who can write well seldom speak English well. Balancing two similar but different skills is difficult.
Cameron says on December 16th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
A GREAT writing program!
Kian says on February 15th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
I have to say, I really enjoyed reading this article. It seems to me to be one of schools greatest failings, how it fails to instill an appreciation of writing into even those among students who aren’t naturally bad at it.
2mins of reading achieved what 4 years of high school couldn’t. An appropriatly good example of writing well.
Twin XL says on May 10th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
Read to yourself, read outloud ask someone else to read it, then read it again!