Will Good Writing Be A Lost Art?

I hire all the writers for our Killer Aces Media blogs. Writer applications are submitted every day. And every day I see awful writing samples. I think Castle would agree that I could use ironic correctly here.

I expect a certain amount of bad applications. When you post a job listing online, you’re just not going get all high quality candidates. But it shocks me to get applications from nurses, doctors, and “experienced” writers and editors who submit samples that don’t even have coherent sentences. It’s bad enough when their email isn’t checked for grammar and spelling. (I can understand how an email can get written and sent quickly with errors, although I would think a job application for a writing job would deserve a careful review.) When writing samples that were presumably carefully selected aren’t comprehensible, I am disheartened. These are candidates with plenty of education and work experience. I wonder if good writing is going to be a thing of the past.

When blogging became popular and mainstream, writing errors were easily forgiven by readers. Many times they’d even go unnoticed because internet users scan rather than read. But ultimately, these errors were more careless than ignorant. What I’m seeing now is simply a lack of grammar fundamentals. Basic punctuation is misused. Sentences are incomplete. Even following the “write like you talk” model of blogging, articles don’t make sense. I’m not sure whether I should lower my expectations or hope that a real writer will apply.

I wrote about my frustration with bad applications at Problogger. That list only helps get applications past the first step — I’ll actually read the writing samples. To actually get the job, applicants should really know some writing basics.

If you’re not sure, don’t use it.

Unless you are positive that you’re using the semi colon correctly, skip it. It’s pretty easy. Use a period instead.

Watch out for too much repetition.

I just read an article where the writer used “effectively” about ten times. It was even used twice in the same sentence. You don’t need to go crazy and use fancy, obscure words. Just watch out for words that you are using way too often. Rewrite the sentence or replace the word.

A sentence consists of a subject and a verb.

I understand that blog posts often break this rule with no great consequence. Sometimes a fragment makes a point better than a complete sentence would. But most of the time, this rule shouldn’t be broken.

Get to the point.

Blog posts are short (mostly). They have short paragraphs. They have lists. They have headings. This means that you need to get to the point. Online users are in a hurry — they’ve got a bunch of other blogs to read. So make sure that every sentence is necessary.

Is that so much to ask?