In America today, there is a writing crisis. Too many people cannot put together a coherent paragraph or a cogent email. Our digital world requires MORE writing not less. Among all of our presentation skills, writing is the most critical.
Words are our currency and too many of us are bankrupt. We don’t understand issues and we don’t understand each other because we cannot communicate well through the written word. However, unlike the seemingly hopeless economic crisis, everyone can improve their writing.
One place to get good practical help is Roy Peter Clark, a writer and writing teacher at The Poynter Institute in Florida. Clark has written three spectacular books on writing. One of them, Writing Tools, is an excellent primer, offering 50 strategies to guide every writer on a journey to self improvement.
Clark offers strategies for how to make meaning through individual words, sentences and paragraphs; suggestions for how to tighten language and be inventive and persuasive; guidance on how to organize and build stories and reports; and, particularly helpful, routines to develop to foster and nurture good writing for life.
