One of the most valued skills that young professionals today can acquire is the ability to write well in a variety of genres. With the age of technology vastly changing the way that individuals connect with each other, express their thoughts, and compose basic messages, great writing is a skill that has all but fallen to the wayside. As a result, employers today are more willing than ever to pay individuals a great salary for their ability to write well, correct their own mistakes, and review the writing of others. However, this does not mean that the creative writer, poet, or song writer can have a great and successful career as a copy editor, because writers will need to adapt their skills to the task at hand, no matter the genre. For instance, writers that get paid to write may be asked by their employer to compose a marketing message for their company.
The voice that will need to be used in this marketing material will need to be upbeat, informative, and brief, which may not be the way that the writer would normally choose to compose a piece on their own time. This skill can be related to the writer’s need to adapt a professional and intelligent tone when composing an academic paper or essay for school. When teaching students how to write well, teachers will often claim that beginning writers do not understand the difference in mechanics between writing and speaking. For instance, when holding a conversation with someone about the latest presidential elections, the individual is not likely to pause during their sentences where a comma would normally occur. Nor are their likely to use certain words like “for instance” when they begin to explain the reasons behind their opinions.
However, for the individual that wishes to get paid to write, it will be necessary to include these mechanics in their writing, just as it will be necessary to include the phrase “for instance” instead of the overused “because.” When reviewing the differences between writing and speaking, one will find that these differences can be better understood by one who has spent a large amount of their time reading. Whether the writer prefers academic journals or romance novels, studies show that those who read frequently are more likely to have above average writing, spelling, and editing skills. Therefore, the professional that wishes to get paid to write will have greater success if they develop a love for the written word. When considering the reasons why reading cultivates better writing, one must consider the act of reading itself. When reading a text, the individual transmits the words on the page or screen into their mind, almost like a running dialogue.
This dialogue weaves a pathway through the mind, which continues to learn the patterns of the text being read by the individual in order to discover patterns. Therefore, the more that the individual reads a certain style, the better they will be able to mimic that style in their own writing, as their brain will already be hard-wired to the task from their previous experiences. However, reading alone will not help a professional get paid to write today, as studies show that the reading experience is best put to use when coupled with writing exercises. In a study performed on several groups of 6th grade students in Marietta, Georgia, the groups that performed only reading or only writing exercises scored much lower on standardized writing tests than the group that both performed reading and writing exercises during their classroom time. For professionals that wish to acquire the in-demand skill of writing, it is necessary to cultivate that skill with a steady regimen of reading and writing.
