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	Phil's Blogservations Tuesday, September 03, 2002 Posted by philgomes 6:24 PM Why Your Writing Sucks: Is it perhaps because I haven't been able to post to this blog for almost two weeks? Thankfully, no. MarketingProfs is running an article on how advances in writing technology—from the pen to the typewriter to the word processor—have had an inversely proportional effect on the art of writing itself. There was a time, the authors argue, when the state of the technology meant that an extraordinary amount of care had to be applied to writing. Indeed, the writing tools were such that care and forethought were unavoidably built into the process. Screw up while typing, and you've got a lengthy night of re-typing ahead of you. Screw up while using longhand, and you've got a bunch of scribbles and other unsightly messes to contend with. The authors identify two principle problems that arise from the advent of modern word processing: 1) Your boss expects the writing process to be faster, and 2) you become reliant on spell-checking, grammar-checking, and—possibly the most evil feature ever—auto-correction. The authors of the MarketingProfs piece certainly aren't the first to bring this up. There's also an excellent, if less-than-coherent, rant on Slashgoth. Auto spell-checking on Word is killing off grammer [sic] and spelling skills. Over recent years I have noticed that, since I have been using Word, my language skills have been going down the pan. When it corrects the words that are sometimes mis-spelt [sic] like "teh" into "the"... Unfortunately, I don't think the author is making a joke. Email makes this problem worse. Years ago, one of my supervisors jumped all over a group of us because she thought our online correspondence was too informal. Well and good—lesson learned. She then proceeded to email the client about her "thots" regarding certain public relations "stratgies." I'm not kidding you. I wish I were. HOME | OBSESSIONS | FAQ | HEROES | CAREER | BLOG | CONTACT Note that the views expressed on this site do not necessarily reflect those of Phil's employer, its business partners, its clients, or anyone or anything that doesn't come from Phil.	ABOUT THIS BLOG This blog not only discusses PR and media matters, but Phil's everyday observations about a variety of topics. EMAIL phil[at] philgomes[[dot}]com SYNDICATE Feedburner ARCHIVE YAHOO! IM SKYPE WISH LIST PITCH POLICY MY PHOTOS www.flickr.com Photostream RSS Enter your Email Powered by FeedBlitz COMMENT AND TRACKBACK POLICY Comments and trackbacks are unmoderated, though I will delete the patently offensive ones. Any comments and trackbacks are the opinions of the individual writer of those comments and trackbacks, and not those of Phil Gomes, his employer, its clients, or its business partners. If you have a bone to pick, bug the people who wrote the comment or trackback.