Comments on: Can Good Writing Be Taught?

By: Bamboo Forest - PunIntended

Bamboo Forest - PunIntended — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 09:06:31 +0000

I think it's really hard to know the answer to this question. If you or I (I hope) have a natural knack for writing, then that's all we know. We've had that knack since day one and it's what we've developed from then on.

In that case, how can we know whether or not someone without that knack can develop good writing skills?

Truth is, I'm not completely sure how I feel about this question. It's a very valid question to ask, though.

By: Interview with Ryan Healy, Your Best Offer and More | Top SEO Writing Services

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 09:25:54 +0000

[...] Can Good Writing Be Taught? – Can we find a definitive answer to this question? [...]

By: Louis Burns

Louis Burns — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 20:58:48 +0000

I agree that you can't teach great copywriting. I'd say it has to be learned. The difference is whether the motivation is internal or external.

We have a number of examples of people who came out of non-English speaking countries learning to be successful online. It's not that any of those people in particular are great writers but I imagine if that had been their goal, they could have done that too. Being great in business pays better than just being a great writer. You can hire a great writer if you're great in business.

To your point, it can't come from a single course because of the way people learn. Any course can only tell you what other people do or what worked before. The real place to learn is in getting out there and testing things yourself.

So while I'd say it's a possibility, being a great writer is not a probability for most because they have other things they want to do. I'd say anyone who wanted to be a great writer more than anything else would eventually get there. And they'd get there even faster using NLP modeling.

By: David Clare

David Clare — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 02:24:45 +0000

Hi Ray,

I believe that anyone who truly desires to be a good copyrighter can, with effort, learn so to do.

I also believe that becoming a truly *great* copyrighter requires that talent you write of in your article.

But this holds true of most any endeavor.

Curiously, I don't know whether I can be more than merely good. Because of educational background (PhD engineering, Berkeley), I know how much effort is required to be "merely" good, and I have been gathering my emotional energy for the better part of 6 months before diving into learning copyrighting.

I suspect I will learn enough about copyrighting to provide a very good "rough draft" to someone such as yourself, which will also allow me to better perform due diligence from my outsourced copy. And that may well be good enough.

I agree with the SK post above, but would not say that it's enough to become great. That's the minimum requirement for simply being good!