The key to college writing is only a few clicks away…
Choosing classes for college is a lot of fun for a recent high school graduate. The anticipation of being able to “make your own schedule” (in other words, no classes before 11am ever again) drives some of the excitement that graduates have for freshman year of college. It’s even more exciting when the curriculum offered at college is broader and more comprehensive than any young high school student could have ever imagined. Classes in the fields of math, science, history, music, philosophy, English, sociolog, writing, etc. can all be promising options in an extensive array of learning possibilities.
But there is one learning apparatus that has yet to appear on this list. And because many colleges now are placing emphasis on the importance of writing, it’s about time this be corrected. What is this missing link you may ask? I’ll give you a hint. It’s in your pocket.
New classes offered during spring semester: Twitter.
Listen to this theory: Twitter is an educational medium through which users can enhance their writing skills.
I know right? Sounds funny? Too good to be true? Well, it’s not. You might be wondering how the heck would I have the authority to make such an argument? Well trust me, all of my credentials are backed by the five weeks of classes I had to take merely three days after my high school graduation as part of a grueling summer program. You can bet that if I was gonna give up my summer to go straight to school I was gonna learn something from it. So I get the chance to offer you advice at the relatable age of a recent high school graduate with the erudite gains of a college student. Don’t worry fellow freshies– the key to college writing is literally right at your fingertips!
During this summer program, I was required to do a ton of writing. One particular professor I had – whom we took quite seriously for he was known to withdraw credit for an assignment if it had more than 3 grammar mistakes – told us that our writing had to be both precise and concise. Now if you’re anything like me and like to “prove your worth” as a writer by constructing beautiful sentences exquisitely capturing the topic or idea behind a writing assignment, it may take you a while to get used to both conciseness and preciseness. But no need to fear – Twitter is here!
So this brings me back to my Twitter theory. How exactly is it possible to learn good writing through tweeting? Well, simply because it forces tweeters to be both concise and precise in whatever they write.
Any avid twitter user knows that the content of tweets has the potential to cover anything and everything, whether you want your followers to know what type of way you’re feeling on a certain day or your insight on some recent political turmoil. Either way, the 140-character limit to each tweet requires the tweeter to mold and shape their sentiments to fit these annoying restrictions. Put more basically, they must learn to be concise and precise.
Now, there is always the option of making a thread, but you might as well be stamping your opinions on a sidewalk that people neither have the time nor patience to stop on. Because remember, there’s a whole timeline that people have to go through, so unless your story is really, really interesting, it’s not likely people will stop and take the time to read some super long and detailed twitter thread. Just like your professors may get tired of reading “fluff” in your essays. So best thing to do is to keep it precise.
And how does one do this? How does one take something that could be perfectly communicated in three long sentences or a paragraph and make it into a 140-character tweet? By changing it. Changing the order of the words, changing how they say it altogether, deleting words, adding words, maybe – methods you’d need in college to get that gratifying stamp (or grade) of approval from your professor.
So there you have it. The key for success at college writing: Twitter. Take it from me – I’ve been on Twitter for several years now and what do you know, I received a check-plus on my first college writing assignment. Older people may try to reiterate one of their favorite sayings against us millennials that social media is the sole “distraction” from our oh-so-important academia, but they’re probably just jealous that they failed to see the academic value in social media itself! So whip that phone out from your back pocket, stretch your thumbs a little, and get to tweeting!
Disclaimer: There are some disconnects in this theory that I must mention, and these include that on Twitter you can use what I call “colloquial homonyms” to save space, like “c” for “see” for “u” for “you.” Although these are effective in leaving space for more important words, using them in a college assignment may not be the best idea and would most likely dock you otherwise easily obtainable points so please, avoid doing this in your college writing!