Welcome back everybody. It is 12 noon here where
I'm at. This is Neogentrics and thoughts if it
were you. Food for thought. Now I know last time
I covered critical thinking and I will probably
go a little more into that at a later date. But
I'm going to go ahead and take a side step here.
I'm going to cover something that I feel is a
little important. Rather, someone asked me to
cover it in light detail. So I'm going to cover
writing skills. I probably will cover some of
the more basic things such as grammar, spelling,
punctuation, and whatnot, but I'll cover that
also if requested. Like I said before, if you
have any ideas, hit me up, let me know what they
are, and I'll gladly talk about them, okay? Now
let me go ahead and say this about writing first
off. It's an important part of communication,
okay? If you can't write, you can't talk. If
you can't talk, you can't write. Good writing
skills allow you to communicate your message
with clarity and ease to a far larger audience
than through face -to -face or telephone conversations,
okay? This is what makes it entirely possible.
Hell, without writing, I wouldn't be able to
write up the stuff that I talked to you guys
about in the first place, okay? I gotta do what
I gotta do, but I gotta first be able to write,
too. So, we'll see how this works its way out,
okay? Let's go off of this scenario. Like I said
before, the whole... point of this podcast is
to stop and think and consider some stuff here
so let's stop and think about it for a second
you might be let's say you're called upon to
write a report plan a strategy at work write
a grant application or press release okay within
a volunteering role okay you may fancy communicating
your ideas via a blog or something and of course
a well -written cv or resume with no spelling
or grammatical mistakes is essential if you want
a new job in the first place okay Today, when
anyone can be their own publisher, you can self
-publish anything you want, you know, we see
more and more examples of poor writing skills,
both in print and on the web. You know, poor
writing skills creates poor first impressions,
and many readers will, you know, they'll have
an immediate negative reaction if they spot spelling
or grammatical mistakes out the wazoo. Now, it's
one thing if you're intending it, but it's not,
if it's not intentional. Like say you're writing
a book or something then it's just plain weird
You know as just one example a spot mistake on
a commercial web page may cause potential customers
to doubt the credibility of the website and the
organization meant for many of us It will have
been a long time since we were taught any writing
skills and a refresher may be needed So this
is this section here that I'm covering You know
is a good way to get yourself back into the line
right of writing and doing what you have to do,
you know from punctuation, grammar, spelling,
and so on. You know, I'll cover each and every
one of them. Give me a short second here, and
we'll go into the next piece. And we're back.
All right. So, like I said, I'm going to cover
grammar, spelling, and punctuation a little bit
here and there. If you'd like to hear a little
bit more about each, like I said, I'll cover
those. And also how to write a report, to -do
list, business cards, resumes, so on and so forth.
Or how to have an effective LinkedIn profile
if you need that. Okay. Correct grammar punctuation
skills are key in writing communication. The
reader will form an opinion of you, the author,
based on both the content and the presentation,
and errors are likely to lead them to form a
negative impression. If you are convinced about
the importance of accurate writing, think of
the clues we use to identify spam emails, phishing,
websites, counterfeit products, poor grammar,
and spelling. Similarly, some employees state
publicly, that any CV or resume containing spelling
or grammatical mistakes will be rejected immediately
whilst a BBC news article quotes research that
calculates spelling mistakes cost online businesses
millions in lost sales. They can't afford it.
Checking for poor writing and spelling mistakes
should be seen as a courtesy to your readers
since it can take them much, much longer to understand
the messages in your writing if they have to
think and re -read the text to decipher it. Let
me put it to you this way, unless you're trying
to write in code, there's no reason anybody should
have to decipher what you're trying to say. All
writing communications should therefore be re
-read before sending to print or hitting the
send button in the email in case of emails as
it's likely that there will be errors. Do not
assume that spelling and grammar checkers will
identify all mistakes as many incorrect words
can indeed be spelled correctly. For example,
when their T -H -E -I -R is used instead of their
T -H -E -R -E or principal instead of principal.
You know entire words may be misspelled and if
at all possible take a break before rereading
and checking your writing as You are more likely
to notice the problems when you read it fresh
and you haven't looked at it for a while And
even if you know spelling and grammar rules,
you should still double check your work or even
better have it proofread by somebody else. Our
brains work faster than our fingers can type
and accidentally typographical errors or typos
inevitably do creep in and they can cause a lot
of problems. Let's move on with improving your
writing skills. okay the good news is that writing
is a skill which can be learned like any other
one trick for checking and improving your work
is to read it out loud reading text forces you
to slow down and you may pick up problems with
the flow that your eyes would not otherwise skip
over or not see you know reading in general like
another way to improve your writing skills is
to read as you read you pick up new vocabulary
engage with different writing styles and there
are multiple different writing styles and Like
I said before, if you'd like, I'll go over those
as well. And how to effectively read. Yeah, that's
actually a skill. There are a number of areas
to bear in mind as you write. As well as grammar,
spelling, and punctuation, it's important to
remember your audience, the people you're talking
to. Always write with your audience in mind,
and it can also help to bear in mind the medium
in which you plan to publish. Like in my case,
I use a podcast. This knowledge will help you
to decide whether you need to write in a formal
style or a more informal one, and will also help
you to decide on a suitable structure, if you
will. Finally, however, have a look at multiple
different webpages, papers, resumes, and so on
and so on, for examples of what is more accepted
for certain platform types in certain companies.
However, and I'm going to go ahead and give this
warning. Okay. There's a time and a place for
a lot of things and cliches are one of them.
They exist because they explain exactly what
we want to say in easy to understand terms. But
some people find them very annoying and you need
to use them with care. On that note, I will and
I'm going to cover this next what is a cliche
in my next podcast. But for right now. Just be
weary of cliches, and when I cover them in more
detail, you'll know what they are and how to
avoid them if necessary. Next is writing under
specific circumstances. There are many times
in your life when you will be asked to write
something very specific, whether this is to take
notes of a conversation, write the minutes of
a formal meeting, or prepare a report. All these
types of writing require specific skills and
usually a particular style. Okay. First of which,
writing at home. Many people would say that the
art of letter writing is dying out. However,
there are still many times when you need to put
pen to paper or word processor to paper and write
a letter. If you're not sure how to write a letter,
I will do a podcast on how to write a letter
later on. Okay? Aside from writing at home, there's
also writing in the workplace. Being able to
write well is a skill which will get you a long
way in the workplace, partly because it is fairly
rare in many places. Okay? One skill that many
people lack, especially in management and other
professional environments, is the ability to
write in plain English. Yes, you heard me right.
You have to be able to write in plain English.
Okay? This also means... avoiding unnecessary
jargon industrial specific buzzwords again cliches
and keeping sentences short and concise okay
taking the time to polish your writing skills
is likely to pay off in the longer term and learning
how to write specific types of documents will
also be helpful and useful okay next is writing
job applications yes that's actually a thing
believe it or not At one time or another, most
of us need to write a job application. Nowadays,
job applications usually require a CV or resume.
And to get a strong covering letter or a good
LinkedIn profile will also help your application
stand out for the rest, as will managing your
online presence effectively. Keep this in mind
if you're just writing for study. You may, for
example, need to write essays, a report, research
proposal, or even a dissertation or thesis. And
these pieces of work are often very, very long
and need careful structuring and writing. Now,
while I would love to cover all of these things
in major level detail, I know a little bit about
each one and I can go into depth into each one
a little bit more. However, since I'm not actually
an English major, that's not what I'm going to
school for. I'm not going to know too, too much
about it, but I can cover them in the most basic
detail possible that I know and from the information
that I gather. Because I'm going to be honest
with you guys, I hate writing. I've never liked
writing ever since I was younger. I do enjoy
creative writing just for the sake of writing
whatever's on my mind, whatever I feel like writing
at that time. But I don't like turning in papers.
I don't like writing essays. But thanks to having
a loving, caring mom like I did, one who's really
good in English and always points out every grammatical
mistake, it's gotten to the point now where I
can't not write something and just be naturally
good at it, okay? So I mean, let's put it this
way. If you can't do this on your own and you
need some assistance from somebody else, always
seek additional help. from a friend co -worker
family member or so on someone who's in that
field to help you and you know bump you up again
thank you for listening this is thoughts if it
were you food for thought by neogentrics and
this was writing skills if you have any thoughts
or suggestions hit me up on anchor facebook or
on twitter and enjoy the rest of your day