How would you rate your writing skills?

I think people have mistaken literacy as the only real criterion, I'd imagine Shu assumed we are all competent in reading and writing

I find it odd that almost none of the members have rated themselves at five or lower, five is the average so it seems bizarre that so many are above the norm. After all if everyone was above the average then it would not longer be the average, ohohoho etc.

I am a five, my writing is comprehensible and contains trace elements of independent thought, personality, and what I hope passes as humour

If a 10/10 is a perfect score, does that mean most people are placing themselves in league with Wilde, Joyce, Huxley, Card, and King?
 
My Manic said:
I think people have mistaken literacy as the only real criterion, I'd imagine Shu assumed we are all competent in reading and writing

If a 10/10 is a perfect score, does that mean most people are placing themselves in league with Wilde, Joyce, Huxley, Card, and King?
Click to expand...


I'm comparing mine in the same boat as above.

Handwriting wise? 2/10.... My hand writing is extremely bad. Its been that bad as long as I can recall.
Idea:hmm.... 6/10. I tend to be able to come up with pretty good rebutles and opinions when writing or typing. Of course, it doesnt matter if somebody struggles to read it. Its not a complete curse; nobody bothers me for notes and stuff.
Typing:6/10. I think I have good punctuation , but my spelling is a curse. But thats what spellcheck's for,right?

So, averaging up I'm a...... rounded up 5/10!
 
My handwriting is atrocious, just visually unappealing in all aspects. It's the primary reason I cringed every time the writing assessment came around in high school. As far as my grammatical aptitude goes, I'd say I'm slightly above average. I obviously make mistakes here and there but in terms of serious writing, I rarely progress far enough in which to properly analyze my abilities. I would go so far as to say I'm reasonably creative in some aspects, but it's wasted more often than not, unfortunately.

So...6/10?
 
6 or 7/10

My main problem with writing is grammar.

You might have noticed i capitialize random words in the middle of a sentence. or i spell a lot of things wrong. forget to captialize my "I"s. If you can look past that. I feel that i am a fairly good writer. if i'm inspirated enough and can keep focused i can punch out a satisfactory story.
 
If a perfect ten is comparable to the greatest writers in history, then I would place myself at a 5 or a 6 out of 10. If we're talking in terms of friends, acquaintances, or people here on the forum, I would say a 7 or an 8 out of 10. Of course, I am not perfect and I generally do not capitalize my words on the internet. I do, however, try to use the proper punctuation as that is intensely important to getting one's point across. I should hope my knowledge of writing is at a higher level than the majority of people I know. I am an English major, after all.
 
If I will rate myself it would be 6/10 and I think it's good enough since English is only my second language. :awesome:
 
Define great writers. Personally, I can't stand much of what people call great writing. For me, a 10/10 is Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game. Using that as a comparison, my real writing, that being essays and short stories, I'd say about 8.7. Mostly, because of how I write. Perfect grammar doesn't come to me naturally and when I do a first draft there are often a number of problems and I don't fix it until I start work on the next draft, often when I convert mediums (handwritten to typed and vice versa).

Post wise, I fluctuate between 6 and 7. I know for a fact that my mind works faster than my fingers can convert into typed words so I miss words and letters and misspell things.
 
As a health professional in the making, I find my hand writing getting progressively worse. haha

[Admin edit: Mind throwing a little more info into this? Just want to elongate so your post does not get deleted. Thanks! =) ]
 
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I would say terrible. I have dyslexia and sometimes I just get frusterated and make simple statements. If I type fast oddly I make fewer mistakes, but the way I express whatever is isn't good. Like it sounds robotic. I usually don't feel the need to put much content into forum posts or e-mails. School reports could take hours longer than they should. Oddly if I read what I wrote backwards I find mistakes easier.
 
mhm aha, I see that someone has decided to make this a realistic thread.
Well no one can have 10/10 because that is perfect, and not even the best writers are perfect.
And so you get to 9/10, and who goes there? Martin Amis perhaps? His ability to command English is unmatched, but even his best books are nowhere near as good as some of the greats; Trotsky, Pushkin, Flaubert, Balzac, Kafka etc etc etc.
But then where in this great scale of being do the philosophers go?
Are they better writers than some of the novelists?
All this goes to show that ratings are pointless.
I'm clever enough to realise that if I did try writing some poetry or short stories that they'd almost certainly be shit.
My essays are almost always excellent. I'm logical and I have a very good vocabulary. Plus I also know a couple of French and Latin terms which I can chuck into my essays, markers find this extremely impressive.
So I'd give my self a billion out of ten at least. Maybe higher.
 
I can say I think I can usually make writings pretty well. I hate rating myself though, because it's only through my own perspective, and not everyone will see it the way that I or you do. If it's something I'm forced to write about that I may lack the will to do research on (like a history essay), I usually do an average job, but definitely not perfect. :wacky: I'm usually at my best at writing when I'm given free will and as much time as I need to write it down on paper and/or type it up. If I absolutely had to give myself a rating, I'd say 7 or 8/10. I've been recognized and won several rewards back at high school whenever it came down to competitions or contests, and have been told a few times I should be an author. :hmmm: But as of right now, until school starts off at a good balanced schedule, I've been taking a break off of writing in general. I'll be getting back into it sooner or later.
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I would rate my writing skills a 5/10. I can write so that I am understood most of the time. I suck at figuring out where to put commas and end up adding in too many in hopes that I actually get one in the right spot. I am not a great speller but am better than a lot of people.

Overall I am a very lazy writer and I don't really care to improve just yet.
 
I would say it's too difficult to rate myself. The only person who could do that would be the reader of what I write. :hmmm: When I have to write essays what's great is that the intro, body, conclusion, application forms quite quickly in my head. My problem is that I lose it before I get the chance to write it. I'd have to jot down keywords on a different pad. I also tend to ramble, which is never a good thing because I end up straying from the topic. D:

As for my handwriting though, I'd rate it a 3. My circles are puny and my 'p's and 't's are too tall. I don't even like my own handwriting. :rage:
 
When it comes to forum posting and the like, I'm average. Maybe 5/10 because I'm so anal about grammar and structure but don't always have something good to say.

Now when it comes to writing as in creative writing... I'll take a risk and say 9.5/10. Yes, I know, I'm being arrogant... but I have to. I'm officially an English Literature scholar now that I've graduated and one of my specializations IS writing. I HAVE to be good at this stuff or all my diploma's good for is tinder. And God knows that I've had quite a lot of hard experience. You don't wanna know how many failed, piece of shit fanfics and original short stories I've published on the Internet before I learned the basics of what makes good writing and what makes shit.

It's a world of hard learning, really.
 
If taking 5 as average... then I may give myself a rating of 6/10 when writing seriously. Perhaps even this is too generous and honestly I am a 5... but I would like to think that my writing skills are decent.
I guess my biggest enemy is grammar and I know that I have huge room for improvement. Not sure how I will do that but I do want to make it better!

Rating my writing when posting though... this would be a cross between a 4 and a 5. I get lazy and like excess emoticons :D.
 
necronecro I saw this thread and had to post.

I suppose I'd rate myself rather lowly in regards to my writing skills, which is natural for most with any skill or trade. 4/10 or so, I guess. I look back over my stuff as early as a few hours after I wrote it and spend several minutes in the fetal position, cringing and rocking in horror at my failures.

My proof readers and the people who RP with me would tell you different, and probably rate me at at least 8/10. They seem to think my stories are a lot more compelling than I do, and I'm the fucker that goes about writing them.

Though I suppose really, you're your own worst critic. I'm probably as good a writer as those guys say, or at the very least not as bad as I make myself out to be. It's pretty natural to be harsh on your own creativity, because at the end of the day it's your readers or fellow RPers who tend to get the most out of your individual posts and plots, because they're the ones reading and/or responding to them. You already have the details and characters in your head, and you're already immersed with it, while others spend time immersing themselves. That's probably why most people are so harsh on themselves. Because they know their story best.
 
It really depends what I'm writing for me. I tend to find myself lost in my thoughts and my organization is bad when I'm trying to convey multiple things at once.

If I were to rate my writing I'd say it's about a 5. When I actually have to write something, like an essay or something, it usually turns out well and the only revision done is me going through and thinking of a better way to say something. All of the essentials are there to begin with and I use them everywhere (grammar, punctuation, correct spelling, etc).

My handwriting is quite bad, though. It's usually legible but I can't stand writing as it is. I'd say it's a 3 seeing as I can read it and teachers can read it, but they struggle.
 
For me, it all depends on the type of writing. For school-type essays I'd give myself an absolute 10/10. I'm able to write 5-7 page essays in around an hour, and be able to score 100% for grammar and content. (With sources of course.) That is where I seem to excel the most. Rhetorical analysis type papers is more of an 8/10. I'm fantastic at writing them, and I am able to produce them in a small amount of time with minimal errors, but sometimes my message doesn't get across like I want it to.

Free writing, or novel writing I'd give myself a 7/10. I like to do it, and I can produce quite a bit of it in a small time. (Most recently 39 pages in a week.) Unfortunately, I'm unable to keep my steam for longer than a week or two, and it usually ends up dying down.
 
if i said good.. the people that know me on here would petition to have me banned..lol my writing sucks. spelling.. horrid..lol i am gonna be generous and give myself a 4.5 outta 10. i write how i talk. yes i have included "dude" and "man" in more than one occasion
 
4/10. I never know what to say in a thread half of the time. In normal writing I'd say 9/10 because I can write a good story, just not a good thread XD.
 
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