"Casual" Communication, or Just Sloppy Communication?

Whenever I was learning about improving my writing skills, whether it was back in school or reading a book on my one, one piece of advice that constantly came up was that one of the best ways to improve your writing was to read well-written books.

I think that's certainly true. When you read well-written books, you tend to absorb that way of writing. Certainly, along the way, you develop your own style, but reading well-written books has perhaps a subconscious influence on how you write.

I also noticed that reading poorly written materials had the same effect. Back when I was typesetting in the early 90's, I think my writing skills took a downturn after being exposed to so many poorly written materials. And, lots of people don't like--or want--to be corrected by someone years younger than them, even if said corrections would make their writing more polished and leave a better impression.

That being said, I think the popular argument that poor writing in forums and other online media is acceptable because it is "casual" or "informal" or whatnot is counterproductive. Bad writing has a negative influence no matter where you read it. And, if you justify writing poorly because it is "just a forum post," you are, in essence, practicing poor writing. Why? Why not use every writing "project," whether it be an article or a forum post, as an opportunity to improve or at least maintain your skills? Besides that, if you make a habit of sloppy writing, when it comes to writing something that must be well-written, it makes it all the much harder to think of the correct way to write something when the wrong ways are more familiar to you.

Beyond that, where ever your writing is seen, even on public forums, it represents you. You're going to have a tough time convincing someone to buy your information product if they found you through social networking, forums, or where ever it may be that you think sloppy writing is okay. You may think, well, that's just a place for casual conversation, but your potential customer is thinking, wow, that guy can't write.

To err is human, so don't think I'm talking about occasional errors. What I'm talking about is those that don't make any effort to write correctly because they don't think the venue demands it. Every venue demands it! The "as long as they understand what I'm trying to say" mentality isn't a good one either. If you can't write a simple statement or question without turning it into a puzzle for the reader, then it's not likely those readers are going to want to read a whole information product where they have to try to figure out what you're trying to say. Much easier just to buy from the person who writes more clearly.

Rant over.