Some readers may be surprised to see a “Writing and Grammar Tips” section on this news and information website. With AI offering free, high-quality writing to anyone with an internet connection—and the ability to craft a decent prompt—why bother learning grammar or refining writing skills?

Does writing even matter anymore? The short answer: Yes, it does.

Consider this: People who know nothing about you will judge the kind of person you are based on how you speak and write. If your words make sense, people listen. If your writing is clear and well structured*, readers stay engaged. They may even respond to you.

Take a recent online exchange between UNAIDS executive director Winnie Byanyima and Uganda’s ambassador to the UN, Adonia Ayebare. While the debate itself was noteworthy, many people pounced on Ayebare’s awkward grammar and punctuation, questioning why a diplomat with a PhD struggled to write clearly and accurately.

Writing is communication. The digital platforms we use today—social media, messaging apps, emails—are largely driven by written words. Each time you glance at your phone screen, you are not just seeing images and videos; you are consuming billions of words.

Books, newspapers, academic papers, websites—none of these can exist without writing. And while AI chatbots can assist with writing, strong writing skills help you spot their mistakes.

At OJ-UGANDA, we will be sharing writing and grammar tips regularly. Some will highlight errors AI chatbots often miss—proof that even in the age of artificial intelligence, human writing skills remain essential.

Here is a good example.

The screenshot shows a sentence (underlined) from the late George Ayittey’s book, Defeating Dictators. We removed the apostrophe and the letter “s” from Saudi Arabia and asked ChatGPT, Gemini 0.2 and DeepSeek whether there is a punctuation error. All three chatbots failed to spot the error.

It is not just chatbots. Even accomplished writers and English language teachers may struggle to see the error in the sentence if the apostrophe and the “s” are removed.

The apostrophe is required because without it, the sentence means that Saudi Arabia is a legislative body.

Let us end this post with “advocate” and the preposition “for”. If you are Ugandan and have used “advocate”, chances are that you normally add the preposition “for”. Even native English speakers do this. Yet definitions and example sentences from reputable dictionaries such as Merriam-Webster, Collins English Dictionary and the Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary show clearly that “advocate” as a verb does not take a preposition. You may be a well-known advocate for work-life balance, but you advocate work-life balance. See the difference?

The screenshot below contains a sentence from a Washington Post article that correctly demonstrates the proper use of “advocate”.

🔴If you care about good writing and grammar, make this section a regular stop. With time you will realise why coming here regularly is an efficient use of your precious time.