The Evolution of The Process
The changing definition of writing and the writing process over my first quarter of college
My definition of writing is nothing close to what it used to be. Over the course of the past 10 weeks in my WRD 103 class what I thought I knew and understood about writing turned out to be very little. I only ever thought that writing was simple, meaning that I only ever saw it as a few key terms and ideas. Throughout this course my teacher showed me along with the rest of the class that there is so much more to writing than we could ever imagine. Although I struggled with this concept for a while I eventually realized that writing is a never ending process.
First Definition of Writing
At the beginning of the quarter my definition of writing consisted of these key terms; moral, one, voice, effective, free, reflection, old, informative, creative, persuasion, and something we can study. This definition of writing is very undeveloped because I only had known very little about writing apparently from my high school courses. The words I once used to explain writing so confidently are now not even the beginning of how I chose to describe it today after having completed my 10 week course of writing about writing.
Revised Definition of Writing
My new definition of writing includes a way more descriptive writing definition than I knew was possible before. Now, my definition includes key terms such as; storytelling, revising, exigence, creative, narrative, drafting, values, rhetorical, formal/informal, purpose, audience, constraint, discourse, and reflection. Usually I never wrote multiple drafts for one piece of writing, I edited it but that was it. Now, I complete multiple drafts of one piece. Another important part of my definition is the reflection portion. It is important to reflect on your writing and your writing process after you have completed it because it will show you all the unconscious decisions you made and also how far your piece of writing has come. Here are some of the key terms in relation to one another and their definitions.
Exigence: What is the purpose of your paper? What prompted this piece and what do you aim to accomplish in your writing?
Audience: Who do you intend to read this piece? What are their values and beliefs and how can you craft your writing in order to most effectively communicate with these people?
Constraints: What restrictions do you face in your writing? This can be restrictions related to your audience, the writing platform that you’re using, the time that you have to complete a piece, etc.
Genre: What layout is best suited for the goals of your piece? In picking a genre, it is helpful to understand who your audience is and what method would be most effective in communicating your intended messageThe Writing Process
The Writing Process
WRD 103 taught me how important the writing process actually is and what it actually consisted of. Every persons writing process can be different, how you chose to construct yours is your choice and how it best suits your writing style.
For me, my writing process consists of a lot of pre-writing. What I mean by this is that I conduct extensive research before beginning to write anything and I think for a long time about how I want to start my piece of writing. In this portion of the writing process I also found that constructing an outline for how I want my paper to look is extremely helpful.
The next portion of my writing process is the drafting portion. Here I expand on my outline I gave myself and filled in all the blanks. After doing this the multiple drafts come into play, adding and taking away things, elaborating.
After drafting multiple times, the revising/editing portion comes into play. For me, those two things are the same. Here is where I make grammar corrections, run on sentence corrections and anything of this sort
Finally I get to publish my piece of writing or work of art as I like to say.
WRD 103
WRD 103 taught me so much and I will forever be grateful for the new knowledge I have acquired over the quarter. The things I learned will be carried with me for years to come.