Writers have been persuading audiences throughout history. In today’s world, CorrectEnglish turns rough drafts into masterpieces. To understand the value of powerful writing, it’s helpful to know how it’s influenced history.
From politics to pop culture to sports, strong writing has the power to change the world. Great speeches have altered the course of wars. Hard-hitting journalism has turned popular opinion on its head. Great literature and cinema have inspired movements and cultural change.
Writing affects the way the world works. Its effects are well-documented in the pages of history text books. It also shapes our daily lives. Think about the media you consume every day. Movies, television shows, advertisements, the news – all begin with someone sitting down to write.
Many great writers do their jobs without acknowledgement from their audience. For example, speech writers let others deliver the words they write and stay quiet in the background. Why?
Any writer worth their salt knows that words mean something. Their work means something. A well-spun metaphor can enlighten thousands of readers.
Not all writing is in books. It surrounds us and transforms us. Let’s examine how it has transformed history.
1863 – Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln
You may have studied the Gettysburg Address in school. It’s one of the most famous speeches ever given.
The Gettysburg Address shows that writing doesn’t have to be long to be powerful. It was only ten sentences and 272 words, and it took just over two minutes to deliver.
All the same, it changed the course of the Civil War. It reinvigorated the nation by challenging the people to do what was necessary to advance the founding ideals of the Declaration of Independence – which was another history-changing piece of writing!
1929 – A Farewell To Arms, Ernest Hemingway
If Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address inspired the northern American states to win one of the most critical wars in American history, Ernest Hemingway shaped popular culture’s opinion of war in a much different way.
A Farewell To Arms is a story is about love in the aftermath of bloodshed. People in Hemmingway’s time were still suffering from trauma after World War I ended, and Hemingway – a journalist by trade – strove for realism in all his stories. He showed how war affects people and the waste it lays to ideals.
1979 – ESPN Launches
An estimated 30,000 sports fans tuned in on September 7, 1979 at 7:00 p.m. when ESPN launched. [1] Lee Leonard delivered a written line that would change sports journalism history: “If you’re a fan, if you’re a fan, what you’ll see in the next minutes, hours and days to follow may convince you you’ve gone to sports heaven."
ESPN gained traction with audiences because it featured the top reporters for each of their respective sports. The quality of the reporting shifted the way fans thought about sports. That’s because writers and reporters didn’t just focus on athletics itself, but the culture surrounding it.
Want to know how you can change the world? Become a strong writer. Now is the best time to start, and CorrectEnglish can help you get there. CorrectEnglish works within your web browser or on your mobile device to correct your grammar and spelling as you type.
The best part is that it’s free! If you’re committed to becoming a top-notch writer, you can purchase CorrectEnglish and get more advanced features, such as a plagiarism checker to make sure your writing is always original. That’s the kind of writing that changes history – what the world has never seen before. Visit www.correctenglish.com.
[1] James Andrew Miller, Tom Shales, Matt McCarthy, Joan Baker. Those Guys Have All The Fun. New York, Boston, London. Little, Brown and Company. May 24, 2011.
