If you work somewhere as a writer, you may have often heard your supervisor saying: ‘Please, try to write in the way you speak so that we can sell our products effectively.’ If you are an expert at Grammar, you may reply to your supervisor: How can I express punctuation marks while speaking? Both you and your supervisor are right. Writing and speaking do have similarities; however, people need to know that there are also differences between the two. In this post, we’ll compare writing vs. speaking in light of their similarities and differences.
Writing vs. Speaking – Similarities
Let’s have a look at the similarities first between writing and speaking in bullet points:
- Writers are motivated to speak to the audience as per the audience’s needs while writing, and the speakers do the same thing.
- You need to highlight essential points in the form of a summary, whether you are writing or speaking.
- You need to stick to the point while writing, so you need to keep the length of your sentences to eight to fifteen (8 to 15) words while writing. That is to say, keep your sentences short. The same holds for speaking to convey your message correctly.
- While writing, you focus on keywords to convey your message. And you place a strong emphasis on words while speaking to deliver your message well to the audience. Thus, both writers and speakers speak of the keywords.
- Making a valid claim is essential particularly if you want to make your product sell via writing. You need to do the same while speaking; otherwise, your audience can switch to your competitors.
- Jargons are usually not good to use whether you are speaking or writing. Why? Because everyone in the world doesn’t know about them.
- Whether you speak or write, you need to repeat important words to ensure your message is being conveyed to the audience.
- You will need to come up with a good message to win your audience’s trust. Thus, you need to edit your content and proofread while writing; the same goes for speech.
- You need a theme to start with while writing or speaking.
- Pictures can speak a thousand words. You need to use them when you want to elaborate on something while writing. You also need to use pictures to express your message to the target audience while giving a presentation.
- You have to use strong words while you speak or write. For instance, you can use the following sentence while speaking or writing: ‘Each participant has an equal chance (strong words) of selection.’
- Whether you are writing or speaking, you need to explain your point to the audience clearly. It ensures your audience understands what you want to convey to them.
Writing vs. Speaking – Differences
Now, let’s have a look at the differences between writing and speaking in bullet points:
- Readers want to read whenever they have a desire for it. For example: ‘Readers may pick up a book, white paper, and a proposal to read it.’ Thus, writers can get the readers’ attention easily. However, the listeners don’t plan to listen to you all day; hence, you need to stick to the point while speaking to the audience.
- You can more easily interpret emotion from a speaker than from an author. Yes, writers can evoke feelings in you; nonetheless, if you are writing a business letter, you should avoid emotional words if you want to get your reader’s attention. Business is a serious deal; therefore, you should avoid emotions in business writing.
- If you want to feel your audience’s response with your own eyes, you can rely on speaking. Why? Because writers don’t convey their messages in front of the audience.
- The proper usage of Grammar can make your write-ups better. You can’t always do that while speaking because you can possibly make grammatical mistakes. Why? Because you don’t have enough time to think about correcting your Grammar while speaking, unlike writing. What’s more? ‘A comma (punctuation mark) is used for a pause in writing; however, while speaking, you may avoid that pause.
Final Words
Hopefully, you have enjoyed reading this post that compares writing vs. speaking based on their similarities and differences. Lastly, if you know about more similarities and differences between writing and speaking, do share them in the comments.