Week 12: Essay - My Personal Guide to Writing

I think I can honestly say that I've done more writing for this class this semester than I've done in all my other semesters of college combined. I think it's great because I am basically writing everyday. Writing so much, it would seem as though I would grow weary of it, especially now since it is getting close to the end of the semester but really, the opposite is true. I've had a lot of time to learn about my strengths and weaknesses where writing is concerned and nail down a few strategies that I typically employ when writing.

Choosing a Topic
So in this class, we've pretty much been given free reign to write about whatever we want. This is exciting at first, but then it becomes a little bit daunting because there are endless topic from which one can choose. How on Earth does one narrow it down? I went through this momentary panic when I was choosing a storybook topic. The one thing I can say about choosing a topic is that it helps to write about what you know or in which you have an interest. Even a little bit of background information gives a good starting place to begin writing. I have a pretty strong church background which led me to choose to write about the gospels for my storybook. However, that doesn't mean writing about what you know won't teach you anything. It's your chance to really dive into a subject and learn more about it. Before writing about the Gospels, I had never really put much thought into who the authors were, so researching who is thought to have authored the Gospels was really fascinating.

Starting Out
This, for me, is the hardest part of writing a paper. Staring at that blank word document can be scary and a little disheartening. The best tip I can get for moving past this stage is to just start writing. Really. Anything at all related to your topic. I find that sometimes it helps just to see words on that blank page. It also allows for some clarity - you've got all these ideas and thoughts jumbled up inside of your head and it's incredibly helpful to see your thoughts on paper. Then, with the blank page gone, you will feel encouraged to keep going. Another thing that I've found works for me is skipping the intro. This may have caused the heads of English teachers everywhere to explode and for that I apologize. However, most of the time that I get stuck on starting a paper, it's because I simply do not know how to begin the intro. Once I've got a few ideas down on paper, I then have an idea of how I want to lead into said ideas, so then I'll go back and write the intro.

Editing/Proofreading
Confession: This is the part of paper-writing with which I struggle the most! However, I can give a few tips based on lessons I've learned the hard way in regard to this process. First, it's a really good idea to have someone else look at your paper. Whether that person is a parent, a roommate, or a professor, it helps to have a fresh set of eyes look over your writing. This is where you'll discover any awkward wording, grammatical errors and technical things like that. Next it is also really important to get feedback from the assigning professor. The professor who gave the writing assignment knows exactly what he or she is looking for so you don't need to worry about whether you're going the right direction with your paper. Make sure of course, that you give you give yourself plenty of time to fix whatever is not working with your paper - you don't want to have to completely rewrite a paper two days before it's due, my roommate and I can both attest to that!

I fully believe that the more you write, the easier it gets because frequent writing allows you to develop a formula almost. These strategies are from my own personal formula but I hope to add more as I continue reading and writing for this class.

Image Information:
The Blank Page (image source: Word Press )
Proofreading: (image source: Dreams Time )