Theory of Writing

            When I first heard of the term, “theory of writing” I assumed that we were going to write a personal theory as to what writing is and why people write. Well, only half of my assumptions were correct. After going over what the essay is actually about, it is completely different than my first impressions. This essay is focused on my theory of writing, as in, what is writing to me? How do I write? What is an ideal environment for writing? These are the questions that I have never actually thought about when writing something. However, when actually writing the four assignments for my Freshman Composition class, I have started to really notice and build on my theory of writing.

            Firstly, I have never wrote anything just to write. Nor have I ever wrote anything because I wanted to, it is because I needed to. I was never motivated by it. In fact, I feel like it requires a lot of physical work. I remember specifically during my AP United States History course where our tests would consist of essay and we were tied down by time. An hour may sound like a short amount of time, but writing nonstop really does get my hand to hurt a lot. This forces me to take a lot of breaks and lose valuable time. Secondly, when it comes to writing a paper about history, it makes me wonder if I am seriously being asked to write or recite a textbook because that is honestly how it feels like. Back to the idea about time. I actually recall an essay I was writing during the SAT exam and the allocated 40 minutes wasn’t enough for me. Whilst writing it, my hand actually started to ache badly so I was forced to take a break that I didn’t want and that has impacted my grade negatively. Timed writing puts a limitation to one’s writing and it is a bad limitation. Timed writing restricts ideas from naturally forming in my mind, and in fact rushes ideas that may not even be good. Hence, when time is interconnected with writing, I tend to write worse.

            Not only is writing tiresome, but it requires me to constantly think; to think about what I am going to say next, and how I’m going to connect them. I actually enjoy thinking, and solving problems but writing for me is a different kind of thinking. English being my second language, it is hard at times for me to gather the proper words or phrases that my brain is trying to express and that forces me to think of which word best resembles what I am trying to say. Secondly, the composition in two genres assignment, specifically, was a hard assignment for me to finish. There were so many questions that I have to think about when choosing a genre, and how to convey the message that I wanted to convey and to which audience. I ended up switching genres numerous amounts of times because they either were inefficient, or weren’t going to work at all. This brings me to the next point.

            Writing requires a lot of sitting down and hearing other people’s ideas, peer reviewing and revision. This is something that I have learned and have become accustomed to when writing papers for my college writing class. Fortunately, I actually enjoy peer reviews and hearing other people’s ideas because it helps me make my writing better as there is always something to revise after peer reviews. For example, when we held a peer review on the inquiry based research essay, our first peer review didn’t involve us reading each other’s papers because we didn’t really have anything written down. The peer review was for our thoughts because these would shape our inquiry question and research down the line and it was important to get the right head of mind from the get-go. We then held another peer review, this time after completing our first draft. It was also a good progress check. This second peer review helped me realize what is missing or what needed to be changed and it isn’t 100% evident without hearing other student’s opinions. Overall, I feel like peer reviews helped so much that I feel like it is impossible to write a paper without hearing other opinions. With that being said, I will try to incorporate it in future writing assignments.

            Revisions that needed to be made also weren’t difficult most of the times. The only hard one was with the inquiry based research essay. I actually had to revise the entire question which then forced me to rewrite and restructure my entire essay. However, it wasn’t extremely difficult because the peer reviews gave me good ideas. The conferences were also extremely helpful as they provided a more in depth insight on the topics and my ideas. I realized that I was lacking a lot of “meat” in the paper and after leaving the conference, I had a lot of fresh ideas and topics that I could research and talk about. This all led to revisions being made at home. Some revisions required me to just move around paragraphs while others had me change specific words or phrases which allowed me to use rhetorical devices.

            I previously mentioned how I dislike timed writing assignments but in a way I feel like they are necessary. I am a big procrastinator when it comes to writing. In fact, I will do anything to take my mind off of a writing assignment. In a way, it is an embarrassment but it is the truth. If my friends were to ask me to hangout, or my girlfriend asks me to go somewhere to eat with her, or spending “10 minutes” watching YouTube, I would do any of the above to avoid the assignment. That’s how much I dislike writing. If I get easily distracted, then how do I manage to actually finish these writing assignments?

            I have one specific strategy that I follow when it comes to most writing assignments. I absolutely have to be in the North Academic Center Library. There are just way to many distractions at home, but the NAC Library is a place of minimized distractions. Next, my friend has to be sitting next to me and must also be writing something. This in a way removes my feeling of jealousy of my friends being outside while I am stuck indoors writing a paper. With my friend sitting next to me, I am reassured that we are both just focused on the assignment and are both “tied down” to the assignment. This is the most important factor to my ideal writing environment. Thirdly, despite me trying to eliminate distractions as a whole, I setup a reward system for myself where I actually grant myself a 10 minute break where I entitle myself to do anything as I please. Sometimes these breaks do last longer than the designated 10 minutes however, I feel that it is an efficient method for me. Lastly, I prefer to be on a computer where I can type instead of conducting laborious work and physically writing. Typing is so much more efficient for me as I can type up to 80 words per minute whereas physically handwriting is slower and takes longer. 

            Another important aspect in my writing is that I take my time with them. By that I mean that I put them away and come back to them some other time. If you’ve read this paper carefully you could actually notice that I have done this to this paper as there are probably thoughts that don’t really connect together or there is a change in the mood. However, by saving the paper for another time, I allow for my brain to generate new thoughts that I didn’t come up with during my first writing session.

            Entering this class, I felt that writing was important but also not really needed by me in my future career. However, I find myself being wrong. My desired profession is to be a software engineer and there is a ton of writing to be done in that profession. First from actually writing the code, to writing software proposals and guides. I find that writing is important and needed for any profession. Despite my attitude towards writing hasn’t changed all that much, In the end, I learned to cope with it. And while I learned to cope with it, it has helped me improve my writing because I became strictly focused on the writing itself, and also attempted to implement elements of rhetorical devices.