Freewriting
In Peter Elbows’ essay “Freewriting,” he emphasizes the importance of freewriting to improve the writing skills. He suggests writing “at least three times per week” 10 minutes per day in a piece of paper “whatever is on your mind”. Elbow stresses that the writing should be done without stopping, just writing every thought as they come to mind because, in the process, we tend to do “premature editing” of our “mistakes,” “bad writing,” or “unacceptable thoughts and feelings” making our writing “dead.” He explains that in the writing process, we are editing while producing, which it carries an “unnecessary burden” when we look for words and simultaneously worry if they are the correct ones. He believes that our writing skills can be bettered by regular practice of freewriting. The author finalizes that our writing has a voice, which is our “main source of power” that catch readers attention. It depends on us as writers to make it into something better. A voice that will be better heard by the reader.
First Thoughts
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Then she suggests following six rules that will “burn through” a place where we write our true ideas and feelings. Setting timed writing exercises to let your thoughts out without worrying about anything else. She says that first thoughts are often crushed by our “internal censor,” politeness, fear, and embarrassment. We should not be influenced by what people will say of our thoughts. Sometimes we omit the true of our thoughts because of the “burden of ego,” to try to be in control and logical. She states that first thoughts are full of energy because they are fresh and inspire
In this day and age, writing is being portrayed through various mediums, such as film and television. Some of those portrayals depict writing as both good and bad depending on the situation that is present. Authors such as, by E. Shelley Reid, Kevin Roozen, and Anne Lamott all write about important writing concepts that are being depicted in films, like Freedom Writers. The film Freedom Writers shows a positive and accurate portrayal of writing in the sense that the writers should have a connection to what they are writing about, writing is a form of communication, and that writing does not have to be perfect the first time.
The main theme of A Prayer for Owen Meany is religious faith -- specifically, the relationship between faith and doubt in a world in which there is no obvious evidence for the existence of God. John writes on the first page of the book that Owen Meany is the reason that he is a Christian, and ensuing story is presented as an explanation of the reason why. Though the plot of the novel is quite complicated, the explanation for Owen's effect on Johnny's faith is extremely simple; Owen's life is a miracle -- he has supernatural visions and dreams, he believes that he acts as God's instrument, and he has divine foresight of his own death -- and offers miraculous and almost undeniable evidence of God's existence. The basic thematic shape of the novel is that of a tension being lifted, rather than a tension being resolved; Johnny struggles throughout the book to resolve his religious faith with his skepticism and doubt, but at the novel's end he is not required to make a choice between the two extremes: Owen's miraculous death obviates the need to make a choice, because it offers evidence that banishes doubt. Yet Johnny remains troubled, because Owen's sacrificial death (he dies to save the lives of a group of Vietnamese children) seems painfully unfair. Johnny is left with the problem of accepting God's will. In the end, he invests more faith in Owen himself than he invests in God -- he receives two visitations from Owen beyond the grave -- and he concludes the novel by making Owen something of a Prince of Peace, asking God to allow Owen's resurrection and return to Earth.
...e does not discuss what she is writing, while she is writing it. She is afraid that if she speaks of it, it will wear out her idea. She says, “If you want to be a writer, I have two pieces of advice. One is to be a reader. I think that's one of the most important parts of learning to write. The other piece of advice is: Just do it! Don't think about it, don't agonize, sit down and write”.
APA (American Psychological Association) style is primarily used in the social science disciplines. It is formatted like MLA, and shows many similarities, but is unique in several key points.
society's approval, etc. He is one of the few who tries to fight the power
It is fascinating to me to read the articles “Why I Write,” by George Orwell and Joan Didion. These authors touch on so many different topics for their reasons to writing. Their ideals are very much different, but their end results are the same, words on paper for people to read. Both authors made very descriptive points to how their minds wander on and off their writings while trying to write. They both often were writing about what they didn’t want to write about before they actually wrote what they wanted too. In George Orwell’s case, he wrote many things when he was young the he himself would laugh at today, or felt was unprofessional the but if he hadn’t done so he would not of been the writer he became. In Joan Didion’s case she would often be daydreaming about subjects that had nothing to do with what she intended on writing. Her style of writing in this article is actually more interesting because of this. Her mind wandering all over on many different subjects to how her writing came to her is very interesting for a person like me to read. My mind is also very restless on many different unneeded topics before I actually figure some sort of combined way to put words on to paper for people to read. Each author put down in their articles many ways of how there minds work while figuring out what they are going to write about. Both of the authors ended ...
One of the most essential ways in which feelings are expressed by humans is through language. Without language people are merely robotic figures that can not express their thoughts because language is in fact thought. When this speech is taken away through complete governmental power, a portion of human nature is also taken away. In 1984, due to totalitarianism, language has begun to transform into a poor representation of humanity and natural human expression. Orwell states, “But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” In the novel, a new language, Newspeak, has emerged. Newspeak has drastically limited the vocabulary of the English language
Writing requires a delicate balance between pleasing an audience, yet finding and sticking true to personal perspectives. More often than not, people find themselves ignoring their own thoughts and desires and just following along with the crowd, not standing up and arguing for anything, leaving behind a wishy-washy essay because they are too scared to stray from the obligations to others before the obligation to themselves. Anne Lamott’s “The Crummy First Draft” and Koji Frahm’s “How To Write an A Paper” both evaluate and stress the importance to find your own voice in writing and to be more critical towards readers. The reader’s perspective needs to play a role in writing, but it should not overrule the writer themselves. Writing needs to
Macrorie has hope that with the steps he provided college students will be more inclined to try and improve their writing. The steps go from “ Writing Freely without a focus” to “ Writing Freely with a focus”. These steps give the audience some assurance that it’s not too difficult to change their writing skills. Writing freely without a focus is the first step, it calls the audience to take sometime out of their busy college lives and free write of ten minutes nonstop. This will help provide voice, by forcing yourself to write nonstop you give yourself no time for Engfish and lies. Macrories reviews a student who attempted ten minutes of free writing this is an excerpt from her writing , “Just one impression was the result, no heat or light or sound- all of them rolled into one impact when the torch set off the fumes.”(Macrorie302). The student accomplished everything Macrorie wanted to, the writer perfectly communicated the effect of an explosion in a short space and it made complete
While preparing for one of his college lectures, Dennis Baron, a professor and linguistics at the University of Illinois, began playing with the idea of how writing has changed the world we lived in and materials and tools we use in everyday life. This lecture slowly transitioned into “Should Everybody Write?” An article that has made many wonder if technology has made writing too easy for anyone to use or strengthens a writer's ability to learn and communicate their ideas. Baron uses rhetorical strategies in his article to portray to his audience his positive tone, the contrast and comparison of context and his logical purpose.
Writing can have many goals: to inform, to persuade, or to entertain, but in each section of writing the major
I am sitting in my bed, thinking about my process of writing as I am trying to go through it. It seems the more I think about it, the less I understand it. When I am writing, I don’t think. Which I know, sounds bad. But, I spend every single moment of every single day over thinking, over analyzing, and over assuming every aspect of my life. When I’m writing, I’m free from that for just a little bit. Until of course, my hands stop typing or the pencil (no pens- never pens) stops moving, then I’m right back on the carousel that is my brain. Heidi Estrem says, “...writers use writing to generate knowledge that they didn’t have before.” (Writing is a Knowledge-Making Activity 18). I believe my ability to write without an exact destination
Being back in grad school has been an amazing experience because it has put me back in touch with my own process of writing; I am conscious of how I write in comparison to the way in which I expect my students to write. I find myself using the information that I share with them, although at times I feel the pressure that I must earn all A’s on my papers because if I haven’t mastered the process of writing, then I must be a bit of a fraud to be teaching it. But then I have to remember what I have learned about my own process, and what I continue to learn about my own writing process. I keep in mind the epiphany I experienced in graduate school, and I seek to share this information, for current or later use, with my students in the classroom.
When looking at music, people tend to consider the past to understand what our ancestors created and consider the process they used to create them. One of the many aspects of music historians is to analyze the music and rely it back onto the public for them to understand what music meant to the people of the past. Each historian has their own writing style. Two examples of the earliest music historians are Charles Burney and John Hawkins. They both have their own distinct way of writing their views of music history.
When I sit down to write, I must do so in a clean, well-organized, and well-lit area. The space must be free from distractions, such as the television or radio, so that I am able to focus and gather my thoughts. I like to begin my writings similar to the way William Stafford says he starts, "To get started I will accept anything that occurs to me." Writing down any thought that will help support and provoke more thoughts and ideas. When my thoughts become cloudy, I like to rise from my seat and walk around speaking out ideas to myself. I find this practice helps to jumpstart my brain activity and clear my foggy mind.