Did everyone flunk their college writing courses?

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I'm probably going to get lashed with a few tons of wet noodles but I can remain silent no longer. Can we all make an attempt to tighten up our communication skills around here? The basic grammar, punctuation, spelling and lack of rudimentary written communication skills on this board just kills me. Didn't we all have to pass college writing courses?

Many nurses claim they want people to take them more seriously as nurses. If patients read some of the written language skills here, they wouldn't let you near them in the hospital. I'm not talking about the occasional typo or misspelled word - we all do that. I'm talking about the epidemic lack of punctuation, typing in all lowercase, and constructing sentences that appear to be written by someone with a 2nd grade education.

Okay, flame away.

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I agree with you completely, but there's no point in talking about it on this site -- you just get flamed. There have been plenty of other threads on this topic, and they all turn out the same.

I just ignore posts that are difficult to read.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Ortho, ASC.

On the contrary, kudos to you for addressing the issue.

I realize that some posters feel that standard punctuation and grammar aren't required on an internet forum, but I don't particularly feel compelled to read posts where I have to puzzle over words or reconstruct sentences in my mind so that they make sense. Plus when the thought process appears to be so disorganized, I'm usually not interested.

Rightly or wrongly, the way someone expresses him/herself in writing, internet forum or no, strongly colors others' impressions of your abilities, skills and intellect.

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Specializes in Family Practice, Urgent Care, Cardiac Ca.

My feelings on it: regardless of the forum, this website represents nursing to the public, and if what they see is a profession of meagerly-educated folks, nursing will remain low on the rungs...

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Specializes in CT stepdown, hospice, psych, ortho.

Kudos to you OP. Who cares if they flame you? My humble opinion: if you can't string together a mostly comprehensible sentence (not counting simple typos, punctuation errors, etc) then I highly doubt you have much to add to an intelligent conversation.

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Actually, I think allnurses is one of the more well-written forums. Once in a while I'll see a post that is mildly hard to comprehend, but I can usually understand what the person is getting at. Usually those posts were written in the heat of emotion. I've never read something that appeared to be written by a second-grader.

Some people have a great deal of difficulty with expressing themselves on paper. My father is the smartest man I've ever met and he can't spell to save his life. My penmanship is atrocious, literally illegible, serial killer writing. Now that I think of it physicians are notorious for bad handwriting and they're usually pretty bright. Some of their spelling isn't too great either.

I will confess that it drives me nuts when people want to put an apostrophe before every S they type.

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Specializes in School Nursing.

It does seem like as educated adults writing a coherent post should come a little more naturally..

I do have to admit I often think faster than I type and make typos and omit words often.. and don't proof nearly as much as I should. Oh well... we can not all be perfect at everything.

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Specializes in PERI OPERATIVE.

I usually ignore the posts in all caps or fancy script. But, look at the internets these days: spelling and grammer mistakes are abundant and a big part of internet culture. (see icanhascheezburger.com )

PS- I r a gud spellr...but this computer doesn't have spellcheck.

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Specializes in School Nursing.
But, look at the internets these days: spelling and grammer mistakes are abundant and a big part of internet culture. see icanhascheezburger.com.

I love icanhascheezburger! Who can't appreciate a good lolcat? ;) I think kittyspeak gets a free grammar/spelling pass. :cool:

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Specializes in PERI OPERATIVE.

I've wasted many an hour at that website. It's fun when I need to turn my brain off.

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Specializes in home health, dialysis, others.

I love www.icanhascheezburger.com but that writing is from the CATS' viewpoints, and we all know that cats can't spell.

It is irksome to read a plea for help, or a vent when the OP seems to be totally uneducated. I frequently wonder - and ask - if the poster is a health-care professional on any level. I don't mind non-pros coming on the site to ask for opinions about nursing, but when they ask for basic care info I get very suspicious.

And this site has spellcheck imbedded; there are few excuses for almost unreadable posts.

As for poor handwriting - it used to be said that med students were too busy trying to keep up with note-taking in school that their writing skills soon disappeared.

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Specializes in PERI OPERATIVE.
And this site has spellcheck imbedded
Doh! That's what that ABC box is all about!
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