Matt Schiavenza

Since graduating from college in 2004, the vast majority of writing that I’ve done–excluding e-mails–has been in this and other blogs. Overall, I’ve probably written enough words to fill a couple of books, an amazing fact when considering that I’ve seldom spent more than a half-hour composing any individual entry.

In August of last year, I began work for a consulting company in which my primary capacity is as a writer. While some of this writing is journalistic, most involves factual data analysis for industry reports.

Lately I began wondering whether blogging has made me a better writer, a worse writer, or hasn’t changed the quality of my writing at all. The principle virtue of blogging is the sheer habit of writing and the truism that any writer needs to get bad writing “out of his system”, to quote Norman Mailer. Truly, when I read things I wrote three or four years ago, I cringe.

Then again, in blogging the stakes are low. If I publish bad information, I might be gently corrected in the comments or by e-mail. Worst case, I’ll lose readers; not something I encourage, mind you, but hardly a career-threatening fate.

In professional writing, false or misleading information can result in failure, condemnation, job termination, or even incarceration (in the case of plagiarism).

When writing my blog, I conduct very little research because I don’t have to. Most of what I write is opinion commentary. In professional writing, research is absolutely crucial. A failure to research something properly can render paragraphs of good prose utterly meaningless.

In my job, I’ve had to re-learn research skills that I hadn’t used since college. There have been some trying moments, but in general I’m getting a little better. Overall, though, blogging has been good, if for no other reason that I no longer sit and stare at the computer screen when called upon to write something.