You aren’t as good of a writer as you think you are

By Collin Lawrence

You are not running a zoo and you will not be sailing to Ka-Troo.

For those who can’t read, my words are falling on deaf eyes. College students can read. Do they choose to? Often times, no. All but a few individuals despise math, except for the occasional psychopath; Ted Kaczynski, for example. Apologies to those math majors who will no doubt save us from ourselves.

Public speaking is a big fear for many college students. Glossophobia, the fear of public speaking, can affect up to 5 percent of the world’s population at any given time. It shouldn’t be, though; public writing should be something of which most people are afraid. Your ability to demonstrate a mastery of this skill will result in a successful four years or a painful seven years. You will have to write and present yourself, your ideas and your findings to your superiors, peers and underlings. They will not be impressed if you distract them with mistakes, omissions and faux pas. Should you possess some unnatural ability to write in anapestic tetrameter, find a decent artist, leave school and write children’s books.

While visiting your friend’s stepsister’s uncle’s cousin’s nephew in his hometown for the triannual Swedish Fish German Chocolate Bavarian Creme Dutch Apple Pie Bake Sale-a-thon and you are forced to try a bite of Aunt Melvin’s Winning Bid Item Number 17396, you’ll know what the rest of us feel like. The fact that you live in Utah and have given yourself permission to insert any fruit or vegetable and the occasional dairy product into whatever flavored Jell-O you please, does not give you free reign to place whatever word you want whenever and wherever you want. This is what it’s like for the rest of us when you use the wrong word in a PowerPoint presentation. We cringe when you ask us to proofread a paper. Secretly, we just want a hand to reach out of the computer and slap you.

“They’re we’re too their.” Like nails on a chalk board, right?

You’re no Dr. Seuss yet. Don’t take leaps and bounds to display a creative amount of talent when you can’t master the basics. For those who have mastered the simple skills and are working toward departing this institution in a timely manner, well done. Should you find yourself on a trip to Ka-Troo, don’t bring back any preeps, proos, nerkles or nerds. We have plenty of them here.