Reclaiming Writing Standards, One Letter at a Time

By ODA

(Opinion)

I’m soon to finish a publications workshop, with this review being my final essay. I think a class like this is extremely important in the modern age now more than ever. We live in times where no one seems to know how to read, write, or argue anymore. When it comes to developing a thesis and being able to convince people of it using professional/academic language, I think we’re collectively losing this skill. This interconnected world makes communication paramount and this class teaches skills we’ve lost to that end.

We don’t know how to read and understand anymore. Our attention span has been nerfed to all hell and so a lot of people struggle with being able to sit down, read something, and retain the information. For those who want to write compelling and interesting articles, this class forces you to do research. You’re expected to sit down and absorb a lot of information to reinforce various points throughout your argument. It’s good practice especially for when we need to justify a thought process on the fly.

Similarly to reading, we don’t know how to write anymore. Intuitively less reading makes for worse writing, but there are bigger issues now that discourage improving at writing. The attention span rings its ugly head again but new technology (cough, cough, AI) also serves to expedite all of the thinking required away from our brains. A class like this reinforces those writing skills and especially teaches you to refine your personal writing style for whatever audience you have captive.

Why a publications class when other classes also make your write essays and articles? Because there’s no incentive to make compelling articles when your audience is professionally required to read through it. I think this ends up teaching us to do less work to hold attention ultimately making us worse writers. In the real world, people aren’t obliged to read your publications. You have to work hard to justify asking for their time. This class is different because of the integration of The Voice, where we submitted all of our publications to be posted online. The end product doesn’t just stay in a closed system, it’s released to people whose attention and interest you need to maintain if you want them to read your work. 

This class makes you think differently about how you approach writing. From reading, to writing, to keeping attention, you’re forced to stress-test some of the ways we’ve learned to write as students thus far. We’re transitioning into the true adult world and so, our objectives of our writing needs to transition with us. When accuracy isn’t enough, this class teaches you how to make them care, one letter at a time.