Writing well is an important skill when your English essay is due. It’s also important if you wish to pursue a career in journalism, editing, or content writing. However, writing well has many benefits, and a list from Marquette University tells us what makes writing so important.

• Writing is the primary basis upon which your work, your learning, and your intellect will be judged—in college, in the workplace, and in the community.

• Writing expresses who you are as a person.

• Writing is portable and permanent. It makes your thinking visible.

• Writing helps you move easily among facts, inferences, and opinions without getting confused—and without confusing your reader.

• Writing promotes your ability to pose worthwhile questions.

• Writing fosters your ability to explain a complex position to readers, and to yourself.

• Writing helps others give you feedback.

• Writing helps you refine your ideas when you give others feedback.

• Writing requires that you anticipate your readers’ needs. Your ability to do so demonstrates your intellectual flexibility and maturity.

• Writing ideas down preserves them so that you can reflect upon them later.

• Writing out your ideas permits you to evaluate the adequacy of your argument.

• Writing stimulates you to extend a line of thought beyond your first impressions or gut responses.

• Writing helps you understand how truth is established in a given discipline.

• Writing equips you with the communication and thinking skills you need to participate effectively in democracy.

• Writing is an essential job skill.

 

[This list was composed and posted by Marquette University]