Self-help Articles

by Stephan T. Poulos, M.A.

Despite the futuristic nature of the electronic media, communications continue to depend upon a user-friendly symbolic language: accurate and articulate English. Today's Online professional may suddenly find him/herself in an arena where the written word is determined to be evidence of the quality of one's professional expertise and finesse.

Voice tonality, pitch, and timbre -- all good qualities in telephone communication -- no longer apply where e-mail and Online conferencing are increasingly commonplace, actually preferred in many circumstances. And with the advent of real-time chat groups, avatars, and two-way cameras, Virtual Therapy is already upon us.

Since the Online professional is exploring a visual method of communication exclusive or independent of the typical face-to-face methodologies employed previous to the electronic media phenomenon, a voice that is oriented to careful and exact reading and writing is more important than one may have previously thought. Writers may know their own intention but readers may not. Further, the professional may be dealing with a client who is an inexperienced writer, in which case careful reading is then paramount.

And because there is always the tendency to misconstrue the word, spoken or written, advanced critical thinking skills are required in order to accommodate that potential. Of course, one should be terribly cautious about "writing between the lines," or even writing in a way that could be read as such. Paranoia may only be the creative mind in spiritual crisis run wild.

Consider that our writing represents us: that who we are, to people who read what we write, is evidenced in the syntax, spelling, and grammar we hold as our own. Sadly, commercial software grammar checkers are, quite literally, inhuman in their approach to writing and notoriously ineffective at developing writers; a good spellcheck, on the other hand, at least by repetition alone, can teach while it performs. But literacy is not simply a matter of spelling well, certainly it is not a matter of good grammar; literacy is making sense out of what one is thinking and then further making sense when one is writing about it.

Good critical thinking may be the single most important technical skill professionals may implement in their Online relationships. The ability to recognize a faulty premise, whether presented by a client, an associate, or the latest Online Net Prophet -- whether illuminated on a roadside billboard or flickering from a passing Web site on the Information Highway -- is virtually tantamount to survival today.

The capacity to read, write, and think critically is an acquired skill, the result of a developed talent, vital to surviving today's potential for catastrophic factual collisions. According to our own literacy, we are potentially either captain of our Internet vehicle or road kill on the Information Highway.

About the Author:

Stephan Ted Poulos, M.A. English, Stanford University `96; B.A., English, UC Berkeley `95; currently SF State University, M.A., Teaching of Writing Composition; and applying for doctoral studies in Psychology. P.O. Box #9156, Stanford, CA 94309.