Your first impression is your strongest, and with the amount of virtual communication we use these days, you best be sure that your writing is top-notch. People will judge your character based on how well you can articulate your thoughts on paper, so your writing can have a major impact on how you interact with your colleagues, professors, clients, etc. Yes, that includes emails and Slack messages as well. No one becomes an amazing writer overnight, though. Even then, the best writers will make grammatical errors here and there. It takes years of practice to become a great writer, but that doesn't mean you can't ask for help along the way.

While some education experts applaud the advancement of high-tech grammar tools as a way to help people more clearly express their thoughts, others aren't so sure. Artificial intelligence, according to the contrarians, is only as smart as the humans who program it, and often just as biased. "Language is part of your heritage and identity, and if you're using a tool that is constantly telling you, 'You're wrong,' that is not a good thing," said Paulo Blikstein, associate professor of communications, media and learning technology design at Columbia University Teachers College. "There is not one mythical, monolithical (English) … And every time we have tried to curtail the evolution of a language, it has never gone well." In the era of spellcheck and auto-correct, does it matter that my son can't spell?

If you stumble over your grammar, take comfort in this: Tech companies are supercharging their digital grammar editors with artificial intelligence and machine learning in an attempt to make clear, persuasive writing easier than ever. Google became the latest to enter the game last week, when the tech giant announced it would be adding an artificial intelligence-powered tool that offers automatic detection of grammar mistakes while composing messages in Gmail, as well as auto-correction of some common spelling mistakes. The company introduced a similar AI-driven function to documents in G Suite earlier this year. While some education experts applaud the advancement of high-tech grammar tools as a way to help people more clearly express their thoughts, others aren't so sure. Artificial intelligence, according to the contrarians, is only as smart as the humans who program it, and often just as biased.