The four main reasons for learning to write are:
1. Writing is one of the best ways to make other persons think or feel as you do.
2. Every educated person is judged frequently and severely by the correctness and skill displayed in his writing.
3. The more you learn about writing the more you will enjoy reading.
4. Good writing gives pleasure, not only to the reader but also to the writer.
1. The ability to write clearly and convincingly will be of great help to you after you leave college. Whatever your field of activity, your ultimate success will depend in some degree on your ability to make other persons think or feel as you do. Writing is one of the best ways to attain this end.
Many professional men and women find that success depends not only on their knowledge, but even more on the skill and clearness with which they can present their knowledge. Lawyers write briefs and arguments. Judges write opinions. Clergymen write sermons. Teachers, doctors, and engineers get their new ideas before members of their professions by writing papers for publications of various kinds. The results of their experiments and researches are almost invariably presented to their colleagues in writing.
To attain eminence in one of the learned professions it is necessary for a man’s colleagues to think highly of his professional knowledge and attainments. It is not always possible for the leaders in your profession to know you personally, but if you can write they soon know what manner of man you are. The scholarly articles that a young professional man gets printed correspond to the home runs that are knocked by a bush league baseball player, but there is this difference. The sand lot baseball player may have made his impressive looking records against sand lot pitching and may fail dismally when he faces better opposition, but if a young professional man has the mental ability and the skill to produce contributions to knowledge in his field it makes no difference where he lives or under what conditions he has done his work. As he moves up to his big league he finds conditions more and more favorable for his continued growth and development.
College graduates everywhere are being expected more and more to assume positions of leadership in all matters that pertain to community betterment. Sometimes they are candidates for office; more often they are directors of the chamber of commerce of their city, or of some similar civic enterprise. Written statements, annual reports, appeals for public support for a worthy cause, letters to newspapers, circulars, and bulletins are almost the only way a public spirited citizen can get his ideas before the other members of the community. If he can write clearly and convincingly he gets things done that would not be done if he expressed himself haltingly and incoherently when he took pen in hand.
Up-to-date farmers and business men use printed and typewritten matter to get new business, to hold and increase old business, to adjust complaints, and to collect money. Every salesman has to write reports to his firm. Formal bids for all kinds of business are submitted in writing. Most busy executives prefer to receive the ideas of their subordinates in writing, and the subordinate who submits the largest number of good ideas in this way is the one who is likely to be promoted most rapidly. Many executives have to depend on letters and bulletins in directing large numbers of subordinates or in directing subordinates who cannot frequently be brought together. If you want to be paid for what you know rather than for what you do, learn to write.