One greasy pizza and Diet Coke-soaked night in college, while cramming for finals, one of my roommates debated me on whether "flustrated" was a word.

She insisted it was. I insisted it was not.

She is now an elementary school teacher.

And flustrated is still not a word.

In a recent report on the state of writing skills from The National Assessment of Educational Progress, commonly referred to as The Nation's Report Card, while students in fourth and eighth grade indicated they have become better writers, the average writing skills test score for students in the twelfth grade fell. According to the report, the proportion of seniors who wrote at a basic level dropped from 57 percent in 1998 to 51 percent today.

In response to the report, U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige was quoted as saying, "The nation’s children are writing better, which is encouraging news." However, he also then acknowledged, "We still have to find creative ways to encourage our high school seniors."

How about this for encouragement and not just for high school seniors: If you want to work in games, you must be able to write.

Have we become a generation of Carries?
In her article, Working So Others Can Play: Jobs in Video Game Development, author Olivia Crosby notes that game testers must write reports describing each problem they find and, not surprisingly, testers therefore should be able to communicate clearly. The bug reports that testers write must be concise and easy to understand. Some companies even require applicants to submit a brief writing sample.

Further, in this month’s Chat with the Game Critics, game reviewer Steven "Westlake" Carter remarks that, "A lot of problems would be solved if game developers paid more attention to the details. You might be surprised how much little things, like mistakes in spelling and grammar, tick me off." It’s "appalling", Carter says, how many games have shipped where the developer didn’t know the difference between "its" and "it’s" or "lose" and "loose".

Few of us who work in the game industry, at least those with easily accessible contact information, have not received an email from a hopeful game developer or aspiring game tester wanting to know how to break into the industry. While their initiative is applauded, the actual content of the correspondence has been, to put it mildly, mortifying. The following are excerpts from just a very few of the emails received by myself and other contributors to this publication:

"hi, i will soon be going to university, and i would like to be apart of the gameing industry, so what courses should i do to get in to me in to the gaming industry"

"First off I would like to congradulate you on how far you have come in the gameing field. It's not much comming from a college student but I find it hard to get where u are"

"Hey I want to be a gametester. why because I know how to beat videogames in a flash and since I always play them anyways may as well get paid for it.Hey I live in atlanta do you know anywhere I could start doing this?"

"If you reading this and say just another person who wants a job that is true but not many others have my imagination and no 2 people have the same ideas so if your interested in a lot of great ideas and threes a job spot opened up as a writer for video games and idea management Id be you man. Just to let you know I am 20 years old and not some kid."

"YO I MADE UP THE COOLEST BOARD GAME MY WHOLE FAMILY PLAYS IT WE ALL LOVE IT ITS SO COOL EVERYONE SAYS U SHOULD GET IT PUBLISHED HOW WOULD I GO ABOUT THAT. MAN THIS GAME IS A GEM **NOT** MONOPLY BUT STILL REALY GOOD NOW HOW DO I GET IT PUBLISHED WHO DO I CONTACT ANYWAY THANX FOR READIN HOW MUCH WOULD I GET?? I DONT REALY WANT TO TALK ABOUT THE GAME B/C I DONT WANT ANYONE TO STEAL IT IF YOU GET BACK TO ME I WILL GIVE YOU PIX OF THE GAME ANYWAY I DON'T THINK YOU WILL READ THIS BUT WHATEVER PE@CE"

The above samples are completely unaltered text from actual emails. Unfortunately, there are loads more from whence those came.

Where did it all go wrong? Is it the quality of teaching? I would like to think the "flustrated" debate was an aberration of diet soda-fueled madness for my former college roommate and now school teacher.

When did using the shift key and capitalizing the first word in a sentence, or any capital letter-worthy word for that matter, go out of vogue? Email, instant messaging, and text messaging at least appear to be the obvious culprits.

Another study earlier this year indicated that spell-check software might be hampering our writing abilities as we place too much trust in it. We’re all familiar with the red and green squiggly lines of Microsoft Word. Indeed, even as I write this article, there are several staring me in the face.

But, for those of you who value no scientific support and complete supposition, I propose that part of this rampant loss of grammatical correctness is, in short, peer pressure. Not just school peer pressure, rather, societal peer pressure and friend peer pressure as well. I’ve had the same best friend for over twenty years, but I still want her to think I’m cool. Whether consciously or subconsciously we all want to look cool. Maybe we’ve all become too hip for capitalization and punctuation. "Sorry, dude, too busy to use the shift key."

sorry dude 2 busy 2 use the shift key

Meanwhile, I’m looking at my rather stellar report card and thinking, "This should increase my allowance 30-40% minimum."

Much of the writing today just strikes me as very Carrie, so gripped by the fear of appearing uncool grammar is tossed in the trashed.

Rest assured, being unemployed because no one could read your resume or because you failed a basic writing skills test is infinitely uncooler. (Which Microsoft Word is now informing me is actually not a word.)

In any event, this is certainly not to say emailing and messaging your friends need to be exercises in proper English, but recognize the difference between corresponding with your friends and contacting someone for a job or to pitch your game.

A Few Very Basic Tips
The following are just a few very basic tips and, certainly, are just the tip of the iceberg, but we all need to start somewhere.

Use the shift key. Unless you’re beginning your sentence with "id Software", the first letter should be capitalized. However, do not get carried away in a "Caps Lock" frenzy like our COOLEST BOARD GAME friend, above.

"Your" and "you’re". There is a difference. "You’re" is a contraction of "you are" while "your" describes something that belongs to you. Unless you’re beginning your sentence with "id Software", the first letter should be capitalized.

"It’s" and "its". There is a difference. "It’s" is a contraction of "it is" or "it has" while "its" describes something that belongs to it. It’s interesting how well the game looked, yet its box contained spelling errors.

"Lose" and "loose". There is a difference. You lose weight. If you don’t have a job and you can’t afford to eat, your pants may become quite loose.

"Too" and "to". There is a difference. "Too" describes an extent while "to" describes a direction. It would be too bad if poor writing hurt your efforts when pitching your game to a publisher.

"2" and "U" and "R". There is no excuse, unless you’re Prince and even that’s iffy, to use numbers or letters in lieu of the actual word.

If writing is simply not your forte, ask for help. Friends and family are excellent resources. If you’re still in school, talk to your teacher. Most genuinely want to help, including, I’m sure, my old college roommate.

In terms of resources, I like DianaHacker.com. This is the site that finally cleared up the "lay" versus "lie" issue for me, as well as how to deal with the gender pronoun issue. She is the author of four best-selling handbooks and has been a professor of English at Prince George's Community College in Maryland for over thirty years.

If you’re out of school and in need of a refresher, check on the evening extension courses at your local college.

While The Chicago Manual of Style may be somewhat too detailed for ease of use, it is the standard-bearer for proper writing. I keep a copy by my desk. Opening it is another matter, but its mere looming, ominous presence helps keep me in line.

Finally, unless you’re applying for a job as, say, a magazine or book editor, no one is asking for perfection, but a modicum of effort is required. If you’re not using the shift key, for example, you’re simply not trying.