As the editor-in-chief of The Current, my work day is wildly unpredictable. Yet, when my alarm clock jolts me from my slumber each morning, I know that three guaranteed occurrences await me: I’ll enter my office, I’ll leave my office, and in between, a student will tell me “I can’t write.”
This declamation is typically more of a dismissal, often accompanied by a scoff or a laugh, as if writing is as outrageous a pursuit as fire breathing, rock climbing or sleeping more than eight hours a night.
I’ll typically respond with a smile and a nod, but secretly, I know these supposedly atrocious writers are liars. They’re sweet and well-meaning and perhaps even truly believe that writing requires a certain gene they don’t possess. But they’re still liars.
The truth is: everyone can write.
Yes, you, flipping through the paper while you wait for the Shark Shuttle to arrive. Even you, the one having trouble reading this sentence properly because you started rolling your eyes a second or two back. You can write.
It may seem ridiculous for an editor-in-chief to have this level of optimism for the skill her job most values, akin to Gordon Ramsey telling every “Hell’s Kitchen” viewer they can cook or Simon Cowell praising the world’s untapped singing talent. But I truly believe it.
Now, let me clarify what that belief entails. I don’t think that everyone has the potential to become the next William Shakespeare, Jane Austen or the woman who wrote the “Twilight” series whose name I’ve never bothered to remember. I’m not under some grand delusion that every NSU student, if they just tried a teensy bit harder, would be destined to sign a multi-million dollar book deal and have a groundbreaking library named after them. I’m not even blindly optimistic enough to envision all students as potential authors of published works.
But I do believe that every student has the potential to write something strong, whether it’s a 100-page psychology thesis, a half-page web comic or a 800-word newspaper article. It’s about finding the right type of writing style for you, then organizing your thoughts to effectively communicate your idea to readers. By doing some research, being unafraid to think deeper, and not giving up, you can be a good writer. Perhaps not great, but good.
The key to strong writing isn’t a complex, seemingly mythical equation like the Pythagorean Theorem. A perfect paragraph doesn’t equal mc². Rather, the secret to communicating effectively through writing is: thinking.
Strong writers are thinkers. They constantly question themselves on every word, every sentence, every paragraph and the product as a whole. When I sit down to write, whether it’s a 30-page academic paper or a 30-character text message, I ask myself, “What am I trying to communicate?” Not solely the topic, such as “an opinions piece on writing,” but the minute details, including the personality or attitude I want to portray, the main point I want to make, the ideal audience I imagine as readers, and my reason for even wanting to write, besides needing to fill up page space.
From there, I ask myself some more questions, helping me to determine what examples to use, how to order my paragraphs, how formal or inform my language should be, and when a sentence — such as this one — as in danger of becoming a run-on. Asking these questions in the voice of Regis Philbin, Bob Barker or any other game show host makes it extra fun.
Then, after the commas have been added, the wordiness has been deleted, and the spellchecker has spell checked, I rewrite. E.B White — yes, the “Charlotte’s Web” and “Stuart Little” author — once said, “The best writing is rewriting.” And he’s write. Pardon me, I should rewrite that to right.
You may ask why it’s important to acknowledge your own writing skills. After all, in today’s technology-obsessed world, paper and pen have become rather obsolete, replaced not just by Microsoft Word and keyboard, but my smartphone and finger. But texting and email is still writing. When you tap your finger on keys or a screen, you’re doing the same thing Shakespeare once did with a quill and ink, albeit in a very different way.
And if you fail to communicate correctly, you may fail to look professional. Any job, from section editor of The Current to line cook at McDonald’s, requires some writing, even if only in communication with other staff.
Even just to land a job, you need to write: resumes, cover letters and thank you notes, oh my! A boss may be willing to excuse poor writing, in theory, but they’ll be highly unlikely to excuse poor communication. Writing poorly equates to not properly communicating your thoughts, which equates to poor communication.
Some people may argue that, considering how quickly professional communication practices have changed within the last 20 or even five years, it’s likely that it’ll soon become completely acceptable for an employee to text his or her boss. I’d agree; I actually already do text my boss regularly, often in response to her being the one to initiate contact that way. Yet, I’m highly doubtful that it’ll ever be acceptable for employees to text their supervisors with unpolished words akin to, “Yo dude lol I can’t come to work 2day I’m mad sick. Sry.” I bet even cavepeople valued professionalism and grammatically correct cave writing. The same currently holds true for bosses — no matter the career field — in texts and emails, as it will via whatever mood of communication awaits society next.
But, fortunately, you — yes, the one who has finally stopped eye rolling — are a strong writer. Or, at least, you can become one. There’s no innate writing gene, complete with babies emerging from the womb with the doctor declaring, “It’s a boy… and a writer!” If you’re not one now, you can become one. Just think, be patient and have confidence. Think of that simple formula as a secret mathematical theory from an unpublished Einstein book.
So, there. There’s your unsolicited confidence booster, dear readers who don’t believe they are writers. Now I patiently await a biology or chemistry major to chide me for declaring that I can’t accomplish anything in their fields. I hope to read and publish an article titled “You can do science” soon.
