Fact: Good writing skills mean you can make more money in almost anything you do.
And if you write marketing pieces, including blog posts and advertising, then stop everything and read this post. Because I’m going to let you in on a secret that will increase your writing skills instantly and that will increase your income.
How will increasing your writing skills increase your income, you ask? When you write poorly and with mistakes in grammar and spelling, it creates a lack of trust.
I know, I know, the two have absolutely nothing to do with each other, but the fact is the human mind does what it does. And in the case of writing poorly, it says something’s wrong here – Beware!
Writing Skills – Not In My School?
So, I don’t know about you, but I totally missed the writing classes in school. I had little to no idea about grammar and was a poor speller at best. And my cursive writing was so bad I couldn’t read it. So I started printing everything and doing so to this day.
I thought perhaps they taught all the writing classes after I left school at 15. But that’s not so according to others I’ve talked to about it. Everyone agrees that the bulk of learning to write came very early in school.
Statistics Canada Says
Of all Canadian adults aged 25 to 65 in 2012, 49% were in the lower range for literacy proficiency, 55% were in the lower range for numeracy proficiency, and 43% were in the lower range for both literacy and numeracy.
University graduates were less likely than other educational attainment groups to be in the lower range of skills. For example, 27% of university graduates were in the lower range of literacy skills, compared with 88% among those with less than a high school diploma.
I got my grade 12 long after I left school. I also managed to score some university courses at night after working all day. And for a few years, Ronda supported us so I could get a college diploma (with honours).
But I still struggle with writing anything.
Poor Writing Skills Affect
Self-Confidence
When it came to writing skills, my confidence lagged and made me not want to write at all. I liked writing, yet I hesitated to write for the world to see because I was afraid of being criticized for it.
And rightfully so as some people used to send me emails criticizing me and saying how they couldn’t trust buying from someone with poor grammar skills like mine – What?
University Affairs
Many postsecondary students have mastered the basics and can write to be understood but are unable to move beyond this functional level. Prose remains inelegant and unsophisticated, document structure is rudimentary and is often limited to the “five-paragraph essay” taught in Ontario’s high schools, and critical thought may be lacking. Students can write, but not well enough to be counted among the “literary elite,” OECD levels 4 and 5. And in the latest round of OECD literacy assessments, only 29 percent of Canadians with a university or college credential scored at levels 4 and 5.
So I collected spell checkers for spelling, and MS Word did a tiny bit better than having nothing to correct my writing skills. And I was always in search of the perfect weapon to slay the bad grammar dragon.
I even had Ronda checking all my posts, but she had enough work and couldn’t always stop when I needed her. And besides, it was unfair to ask her to work for me.
Guess What I Found – Free
I don’t remember how I initially found this little gem that has become my favourite app, but I owe someone a world of gratitude.
I don’t write anything, and I mean anything, without using the Grammarly app.
It works with the three main browsers you use online for everything you do. Now, you may only use one of them, but I often have to check my work in all of them. And other times, I find certain things stop working in one browser, so I’ll switch to another.
I use the Grammarly app on my iPhone, and Ronda also uses it on her iPad.
I’m back to using Safari on my Mac mostly these days, as Google Chrome messes up a lot. They seem to go in cycles of being problematic at times. And there are still some programs I use that don’t play nice with Safari but will with Chrome.
Anyway, Grammarly works with Facebook too – (PLEASE tell your friends that it works with Facebook; some of them really need to know:) as well as Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Gmail, etc.
It picked up the fact that I missed a comma after LinkedIn just now … sweet!
Even when I am not writing online, I will write what I have to say using Grammarly and then either print it or rewrite the corrected version by hand. I love it.
Go check out the free app at Grammarly.com now so that you can feel completely confident about your writing.
You’ll always be glad you got Grammarly, especially if your writing is attached to your income in any way.