We joke about the poor education most people get in the United States, but I have seen it up close and it's anything but funny.

I assigned more than my share of papers in my days as a professor. What was handed in to me defied belief.

Dear reader, you surely have certain expectations for what a college essay ought to look like in terms of organization and argument.

That's not even in the ballpark of what was submitted to me. Forget about organization, a thesis, supporting arguments, etc. Some of it barely made any sense at all.

So forget about interesting insights, or well-argued points. It was clear enough most of them had understood none of the reading they had purported to do.

I used to assign Thomas Sowell's book Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality? It's one of my favorite Sowell books. Like virtually all of his books, it was written for the general public.

And yet these particular members of the general public could not understand a single thing Sowell was saying.

The thesis couldn't be clearer, yet I had people handing in papers arguing the exact opposite of what Sowell had said.

But as I say, the main problem wasn't bad arguments. The main problem was the atrocious, nonsensical writing.

Now you, dear reader, are a better writer than they are.

But I'm being honest with you: you're probably not as good as you think.

I thought I was a fantastic writer when I was in high school. I generated serpentine sentences replete with long words -- surely this was what good writing was all about!

I'm mortified when I look back on those days.

Being a good writer is a rare thing indeed. For that reason, it will make you stand out.

I'm going to show you, for free, how to become one.

And I have ten other freebies where that came from.

You're welcome:

https://www.ElevenFreebies.com

Tom Woods