As a future educator, the writing of current college students extremely dismays me. As well as their inability to follow a prompt, but that's a lesser issue comparatively. A lot of people wonder what the big deal is. "Who cares about how a person writes?" "It's not like everyone is going to go into a job where writing is required anyway, what does it matter?"

Well, it does matter. Every time I read a particularly poorly written paper, I think about the resume of the person and imagine myself as a person who's hiring for a certain job. If you're up for a job and the person reading your resume cannot understand what you're saying and it's poorly organized, it will immediately end up in the trash.

If you're a doctor writing instructions for a patient and they cannot understand what you're writing, or you leave information out (because you're unaware of your audience), then it could seriously harm that person's health.

If you're a businessperson sending e-mails to clients, I wouldn't want to be the client of someone who e-mails like they're texting.

If you're a college recruiter and have multiple spelling errors in your emails to prospective students, then it doesn't really portray the quality of your college. (Or maybe it does...)

Writing is SO important. The written word allows you to tell someone something without having to open your mouth. This is why it exists. The punctuation allows for the pauses that naturally occur in speech to be expressed to your reader. If you're unorganized, every other word is misspelled, and have a plethora of commas, no one is going to be able to understand you. It doesn't matter what job you have; writing is important.

Also, a tip: IF YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO SPELL SOMETHING, LOOK IT UP. Seriously. I do it all the time. No one will ever know. You do NOT have to be ashamed of looking something up because you don't know how it's spelled.