Because of Twitter, I find myself writing tighter these days. (Actually, I should say “writing more tightly,” but that’s five more characters and spaces than “writing tighter”…)

If you’re a Twitter user, you know that we’re limited to 140 characters and spaces for each “tweet” we write and send. Mastering writing for Twitter is becoming easier and easier as the days and months go by. But, there are some downsides: I can’t always be grammatically correct, and I find myself leaving out punctuation. (Not natural or good for me, since I teach writing… What will my students think?!)

In addition to writing tighter, I think I’m also giving more thought to each word and reviewing the overall message I’m trying to convey each time I write — and not just on Twitter. I’m finding that I’m doing the same in my everyday writing — emails, writing assignments for clients and more. These are good “side effects” of being forced to write tighter each and every day.

Tell me: Are you writing tighter, too?

Until next time,

Kathy Magrino