Good Writing

Grammar, punctuation, vocabulary, and creativity are all tools in the toolkit of a good writer, but they aren't what makes good writing. If you forget a comma in a sentence but the content pulls my heartstrings and makes me feel something, I would still considered that good writing. Good writing is about emotion, about understanding, about conveying ideas and thoughts, about communication. Good writing can use conventional grammar and punctuation but it doesn't need to. I've seen great examples of writing on social platforms among some of the other words and comments that may seem mindless. An insightful comment on a conspiracy theory, an astute observation on the creation of a model rocket, a creative suggestion for the next challenge that someone should tak on, however short and simple can have compelling thought and idea behind it. In this manner, who are we to judge the impact of someone else's words on another? The repetitive comment of "gorgeous" below that girl's instagram post may not be good writing to me or effect me in the slightest, but it might have a profound impact on the friendship and communication between the person who posted and the person who commented. Good writing is subjective. When it comes to writing on social platforms, no one is looking for a perfectly composed essay that would garner an A in your literature class. The evolution of technology and social platforms has also begun an evolution of our language. In the same way that Spanish, English, German, Japanese, etc have different grammatical structure, vernacular, and verbal rules, one might consider that the language we use online and on social platforms does too. With a rapidly progressing amount of communication occuring online and through text-based platforms, social convention and communication changes. Grammar and punctuation have to be used to convey emotion and verbal cues that body language, volume, and tone would in a verbal conversation. This change in rules doesn't mean that good writing has been lost. It just means that you might need to be reading a little differently.