My Writing Process

In an attempt to better understand myself, I have spent time reflecting on my writing process. In this reflection, I found parts of my process that affect my writing ability positively and negatively. Surprisingly, I learned about how I logically address my subject matter and how I support my ideas through concrete evidence.

While reading the Student Guide, I began to consider what writer archetype I most identified with:

• The description of the Heavy Planner and the Sequential Composer best fit my writing process. The approaches that these archetypes use are very similar to my own approaches.


• I begin by roughly outlining in my head how I want to respond and convey information. I quickly identify my purpose and my main arguments.


• I consistently revisit sources I am drawing on. These revisits serve as a chance for me to take notes and gather ideas on how I am going to continue to form my draft.


• My notes are inspired by what I read and the ideas, internal responses, and reflection that this reading brings about.


• I love to write down my immediate impressions on the sources I use to aid in my arguments, and this allows me to write from my heart. It also allows me to establish direction.



Jim. "No Hay Problema."6/02/2007 via Flickr. Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic



• I slowly move through each paragraph and focus on the formation of my arguments and subject matter I express. I ensure that I connect my points back to my thesis or purpose. This way my draft is organized around the original inspiration I had for writing it.


• As I draft, I constantly try to simplify my writing, and I reread what I have so that it flows well together.


• I do tend to only have one draft and this draft is generally close to being a final draft.


• I work for a long period of time when I draft and generally finish it in one sitting.


• I then spend time revising and finalizing what I say. From this process, I clarify my purpose and understand what I truly want to say.


• I attach a conclusion or reflection at the end of most of my pieces so as to share what I have gained through the writing process.


• I find my writing process to be very successful. However, I also have some weaknesses to my approaches.




•  I have been commended by past teachers for my clarity of argument because I am consistently writing from my unique purpose and relating back to it with each sentence.


• As my senior year teacher Mr. Hodara wrote on my final senior paper: "You are, clear, directed, and relentless in pursuit of your thesis....Thanks Nic, for your intense focus and great heart."


• I spend so long planning sometimes that it can lead me to struggle in my drafting process.
• While planning as I go works, often times I can lose focus on what I was originally trying to argue.


• I also have to make sure I use solid points to support my argument. I cannot use too many points, as this would lead my readers to lose the purpose of my argument in the jumble of defenses I give for my point of view. 


• My drafts are almost always a final draft, and this can lead me to not revise enough. I might not give enough time to make sure I said what I wanted to say with my current drafting process.


• I believe that from this analysis of my writing process, I could benefit from using a few new conventions throughout my process.




• I need to give myself more time when drafting. I need to space out my drafting into smaller chunks. This will give me more time to reflect and polish


• With more drafting comes more potential for creating a truly perfect work. I find that if I produced more drafts I could revise the ideas in one draft, the grammar in another.


• I need to spend more time each day writing instead of leaving huge chunks of it for the few days before the deadline.

REFLECTION:

I was very interested in what Bri had to say about handling procrastination by setting up a new due date. This idea is quite clever and I do not know why I never thought about that as a way to solve this problem. I plan to implement this plan throughout this semester. I need to revise more throughout my process, and I need to worry less about what I am writing down so that I can get it all down on paper. This will allow me to be able to start revising the paper as an entire unit rather than separated parts. I could totally relate with Elliot about how I spend more time planning than writing the paper. With more time spent actually writing, I will improve my ability to communicate my ideas. Thus, I want to try planning a little less this semester as I am really strong at that. With this improvement in mind, I want to move forward. I wish to continue to improve my writing so as to have more people understand what I am saying. Through writing I hope to have more people discover who I am and what I truly believe in. All of this will be possible through a continued desire to learn and better who I am and how I correspond with others.