Can you write?

I think it comes down to how much reading you do...a lot of younger people dont read now...too many competing distractions. I love to read but even I find with movies, ever increasing number of quality tv shows, internet, sports, other hobbies, socialising my reading often gets cut down to the commute to and from work.

There is a saying from the movie Bad Boys, it goes like this "everybody wanna be like mike" which is true who wouldnt want to be like mike in that movie? Rich, funny, smooth, gets the ladies easy ect ect. The problem with dumb ass kids is simple they all want to be like mike but they end up using the wrong mike as a role model.

They use the paris hiltons, like omg I have a ugly dog in my purse. The constant urge to make their texting more efficient, brb i b n da store. That coupled with no common sense what so ever merges together and makes for the horrible state of young peoples writing today.

I can't write to save my life, but it is something that is my own fault for things mentioned above. I didn't matter in high school but now in college, it is a huge bitch.

I had to proof read my friend's admission letter to medical school. Afterward, I didn't want to be her friend anymore.

Just pick up some grammar books and study it on your own time. Also write a blog, it will improve your writing skill tremendously.

Jeff - feel this way exactly. Have always taken great pride in being able to write. It sometimes goes to the point where I feel that I cannot delegate work to group members for fear that they will write like 6-year-olds. What maherj said is right: it has to do with reading. The more you read, the better you write.

Agree with OP - for example, how the fuck was writing 101 so hard? I mean, anyone could come to a different conclusions than the instructor and take a hit on that point, but lets see:

• read something
• think about it
• write an intelligible response.

How is this so difficult???

IMO writing is one of the most important skills in life.

One of my group mates spelled wineries as "winerys." I shit you not. She said that Microsoft Word hadn't corrected it, so it must be right....

My parents just preached "readers are leaders" from infancy. Cannot stress this enough, and if I'm ever at the point of having kids, you can put money on the fact that I'll stress it with them.

The solution is also strikingly simple - sit down and start reading. Expand your mind and develope an interest or two. Learn about things other than just enough BS to scrape by in school.

The same thing happened to me this past weekend with group projects. I spent hours fixing papers, sometimes I don't even know how people are in college if their grammer is so terrrible.

Writing is something I take pride in, whether it is a post on FB or here. I always try and craft out prose in the most efficient manner. I also read a lot and that is a definite style influence, whether it is FT or Pitchfork- it is neither here nor there; good writing is good writing...

I think reading mini burb kind of shit on the internet all day like i do just kills your writing.

In a 1950's, '60's, '70's high school english class, the students would literally just drill grammar books for 4 straight years. Nowadays, a high school english curriculum consists of reading about the plight of the common man and it stresses creativity over structure. This is why people cannot speak or write today. The only high school I know that still drills grammar is Boston Latin (arguably one of the best public schools in the nation). They send about 11 kids to Harvard every year. Go figure.

I don't understand why public schools do not just drill grammar into kids. This is what other countries do. In the United States, they just indoctrinate kids with inequality and love stories. Guess the government does not want people to clearly express their minds.

I've always had trouble writing very wordy essays. I don't see the point by including unnecessary information. I like to get to the point in as little words as possible. Its not that the content is lacking quality, it lacks quantity.

I was proofreading some of my 17-year old brother's essays, and it looked like he had fallen into a habit of repeating the same shit over and over but in different words. My guess is that dumb length requirements for high school essays encourage this type of redundant writing.

the amount of college students that do not know how to properly use their, they're and there...along with too, two and to is heartbreaking.

There was an article in the NY Times a couple days ago titled "The Default Major - Skating Through B-School". Talks about the lack of learning that takes place in undergrad b-schools. So true. At my b-school anyway.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/education/edlife/edl-17business-t.htm…

I don't know whether drilling grammar into students is the solution. I went to school in France and was taught French Grammar for 10+ years but I learned how to write in English by reading stuff online (starting around 1995 or so) and writing papers in English class (1998 on). By the time I was in college (in the US), I was one of the best writers in my entire school and professors noticed the quality of my writing on every single paper I wrote. The only thing I did differently from most people was read. And not just great literature either. The more you read, online or not, the more you understand what style and proper grammar are.

I'm generally a good writer and wrote lots of good college papers back in the day. But I completely agree - I'm reading a lot less now and noticing a deterioration in my writing fluency. I have to pause a lot more now to think about how to phrase things as opposed to words just naturally rolling off the pen. Also, with all this technology and spell-checking, my spelling is also slowly deteriorating. I recently had to look up whether "transferring" was spelled with 1 "r" or 2.

The fact that I spend a lot of my time on a finance board with a bunch of retards probably doesn't help haha