Writing Pet Peeves #1: Capitalization

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I put #1 in the title of this post because there are several pet peeves I have when it comes to writing that I plan on discussing at some point. This will be the first. It won’t be a weekly thing, I don’t think, but I’ll add to the list whenever I come up with something new.

Okay. I understand that writing is pretty difficult for a lot of people. I’m talking those who struggle with writing a 2-3 page essay that makes any sense at all. Or those who struggle with grammar and punctuation. I get it. But there are some basics to writing that everyone knows, no matter how well you actually write. Punctuation at the end of a sentence. Capitalize the first letter of the first word when starting a new sentence. Capitalize proper nouns. At the bare minimum everyone knows these things. At least that’s what I thought until I got on WordPress.

But I see blog post after blog post all the time with sentences like this: “i never know what to write about on here. maybe i should just use it as an outlet…” I mean, really? Is it that hard to press the Shift key when starting a new sentence? Or when using “I” in a sentence? No. It isn’t. It’s lazy. And it’s annoying to read that way. Honestly, as soon as I realize the blogger refuses to use proper capitalization I just read something else.

If you’re going start a blog, no matter if you consider yourself a writer or not, you should at least respect your reader enough to use proper capitalization. Otherwise, you’re writing for an audience that doesn’t exist.

Don’t tell me about your writing pet peeves just yet. Cause I have like a dozen I’m going write about.