Maxwell Wang Week #1: Written by a Bot

 

    My friends from last year’s English class might remember what I wrote about for our “I Believe” essay final. My writing talked about my belief of the “beauty and clarity” in all forms of writing, including text messages, with capital letters and punctuation, good grammar, and correct spelling, just like what you’d expect to find in an English essay.

    I understand that style of writing isn’t something that people necessarily expect to receive when texting with a teenager, but that is exactly what peers and adults unlucky enough to get a message from a certain 402 area code number will see! 

    I wonder what makes me type this way. Is it the grammar textbook we studied for English 9 Honors quizzes, the textbook I ended up purchasing on eBay so I could always have it? 


Photo credit: Original

    No, probably not. While it was surely the primary resource that strengthened my knowledge of grammar and opened up my eyes to fascinating rules I had never known, the irresistible appeal of polished writing was something that I had already committed to (with varying degrees of success) well before high school. 

    Since as early as I started writing short stories in elementary school that I may or may not prefer to look at anymore, I’ve found myself using periods at the ends of my sentences and capital letters at their beginnings. Never mind that I still got confused about whether I should be putting periods inside or outside of quotation marks up until ninth grade. But if I wanted to be like the authors on the shelves and the real writers out there, I had to stick as closely to the rules as I could, right? 


Photo credit: Original

    As I got older and got a phone, friends would point out that I sounded like a robot when I texted with them. I guess having autocorrect enabled didn’t help much, since it automatically capitalizes for you after each end mark. 

    But this style soon became my identity - something I used in the texts I would come to send, in the forum posts where I maybe shouldn’t have been, and in emails I’d click-clack out to all sorts of people. Sometimes, it made me sound credible and helped me get things I needed. Sometimes, it made me sound quite frank, and rightly so when I felt that way. But it has always been for me a valuable tool of comfort in the vast and, at times, intimidating expanse of communication with others. 

    So I encourage you, the next time you sit down to write, to put a little pizzazz into your words. And before you click send, close the tab, or send it off for the world to see, read back through it and proofread. Do this enough times, and eventually, you won’t need things like Grammarly or another robot to check your work. I mean, how could that be necessary if you're already a robot yourself?


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