It is not uncommon to think that literature is about reading poetry, short stories, and diving into the magical world of fantasy, mysticism, thrillers, and historical novels.

Of course, this opinion is not entirely wrong, since many people do enjoy a good read. However, there is much more to literature than most of us realize. Not only does it help improve your command of spoken language, but it also helps strengthen your writing skills, stimulate your intellectual curiosity, improve your memory and encourage you to be critical, all important skills for any career.

Critical Analysis
This skill is highly developed by commenting on, interpreting, and offering different opinions and perspectives on someone else’s work. It automatically allows you to write and use extensive vocabulary to express your views.

In addition, you need to analyze written structures, ideas, themes, and characters, creating persuasive writing techniques to convince your own reader of your analytical point of view.

Develop your intellectual curiosity
“Reading through the lines” to decipher the author’s meaning, intent, and message expands your thinking to new ideas and possibilities. You also learn more about history, society, and cultures by reading from different eras. This historical insight and glimpse into the past can stimulate your curiosity for further research or deeper reading in that genre or era.

You also gain more knowledge the more you read, giving you a foundation of knowledge for engaging in intelligent conversations with your peers.

Strengthen your writing skills.
Literature not only expands your vocabulary; it also helps you write in a dickish and coherent way. This means you can write clear sentences that are easy to read and understand using correct paragraph structure and grammar. You can write complex sentences and adapt your text for different readers, for example, in and out of the workplace.

You will learn to be concise in your message and present ideas and arguments in a meaningful way. These skills help strengthen your communication skills, both written and oral, for all future job prospects.

Mental stimulation.
Concentrating on words and storylines stimulates your brain and keeps it active and alert . It also helps expand your thinking as you analyze topics, interpret messages, and discover new words.

Studies have also shown that learning a completely new language can reduce the onset of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

Improve your memory and attention span
During your literature classes, you will recall sequences of events and historical periods, which will help improve your memory. Not only will you pick up new words, but you will also maintain your level of concentration and be more attentive.

Since some writing will be very interesting to you as an individual, you will naturally be drawn to reading and therefore be able to concentrate better.

Stretch your imagination
You will be forced to think outside the box and reach areas of your imagination that you may have thought impossible. This will broaden your thinking, encourage you to generate new ideas and engage in creative conclusions.

The creative industry is the fastest-growing sector of the economy, which gives us a better chance to pursue careers that require these skills. Creativity is highly valued by employers in all sectors to help improve products, services and processes, as well as things that cannot be automated by robots.

Why is literature important to my career?
Have you thought about how you can talk coherently and clearly about important issues in the workplace? You’ll be able to use the power of words to convince and persuade colleagues to accept your idea or, better yet, defend your idea if your audience disputes it.

You’ll also have the ability to write to senior staff with important inquiries, to outside agencies to discuss terms of agreement, and to clients to promote and advertise product sales. You will also be able to write reports and documents confidently and easily without negative judgments from others. Being persuasive in all aspects of your role is critical to your success.

Literacy skills will help you succeed in your career, raising your profile as a good communicator and strong worker, no matter what position you start in. By reading this blog, you are training your mind and not reading a book! You also better understand the benefits of literature and the reason why it is still so important to your future career.