The College Board's survey of 120 major American corporations, employing nearly 8 million people, concluded that writing is a threshold skill for hiring and promotion. Half of the companies surveyed reported that they consider writing ability when making promotion decisions. One manager remarked, "People who cannot write and communicate clearly will not be hired, and if already working, are unlikely to last long enough to be considered for promotion." Another commented, "You can't move up without writing skills" (The National Commission on Writing, Writing: A Ticket to Work . . . Or a Ticket Out. A Survey of Business Leaders [September 2004. http://www.writingcommission.org/prod_downloads/ writingcom/writing-ticket-to-work.pdf]).
 
           In 2005, the National Commission on Writing asked the human resource directors of state governments, representing 2.7 million state government employees, about the importance of writing skills for employees in the public sector. All reported that writing is an important responsibility for employees, and 75 percent said they take writing into account when hiring (The National Commission on Writing, Poor Writing Skills Cost Americans Millions [July 2005. http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/ news/article.adp?id=20050704071909990003&_ccc=5&cid=842]).
 
          Stephen Reder, of the U.S. Department of Education and Portland State University, found that among people with two-year or four-year degrees, the average earnings of workers in the top 20 percent of writing ability are three times as high as workers whose writing falls into the worst 20 percent ("The High Cost of Living and Not Writing Well." Fortune 7 Dec. 1998: 244.).
 
           Clearly, your writing competence is important to you professionally and personally.