Having served on the faculties of multiple universities, I can tell you that fence-building, creating perceived barriers, erecting scary totems to keep out intruders, is a time tested technique in the halls of academia.

Among the things Ph.D. advisors drill you on are the questions: "How does our field differ from others?" and "What makes us distinctive?"

So, there are usually tall fences built between departments of Journalism and Writing on the one hand, and on Spoken Communication, on the other.

Mostly, it's taken for granted that spoken and written discourse differ, but I'm here to tell you, at root, they're very similar. Moreover, if you're a great speaker, there's no reason you can't be at least a capable writer, though the obverse doesn't always apply.

Fine writers may stumble and bumble their way through presentations from the platform, or on TV or radio.

A fine example, in my estimation is film critic Roger Ebert. If you follow his reviews in the Chicago Sun-Times, as I do, you may be as impressed with the clarity, and occasional brilliance of his writing.

Watch him on TV, and for lack of a better term, he seems like a dork.

Forgiving his portliness, his voice is nagging, high-pitched, and straining. He seems to have one volume setting that might be characterized as "emphatic."

And many other fine thinkers and writers are rowing in the same boat. Their prose is more than adequate, but their delivery sucks.

Here's the good news if you're a popular speaker. Simply speak your speeches into a software program and edit them later, and you'll make the happy transition from the spoken to written word.

On the other hand, if you're already an accomplished writer, I'm not so sure speech coaching will do you that much good, especially if you chose to write, at least partly, because of shyness or in acknowledgement of your performance weaknesses.