Theory of writing

Theory of Writing

Walking into this freshman composition class my idea of writing was a typical one. Authors use certain tones and structures because it is what works, I never took time to sit down and identify what the actual structure of the message was. My idea of writing is that the communication of an idea through the unique style of an author is always the most important thing to focus on. The goal should always be for the reader or audience walk away with a message through their own skills of perception. This is my theory of any writing the at the center of any writing is language and as we grow and learn no matter your background language makes us all writers. There is not one solid language for writing, there are multiple languages out there and being able to find one that everyone can understand is what writing allows us to do. Walking into this class from each assignment I felt that rhetoric devices were always the strong foundation for the assignments. I now take time to plan out words and actually use outlines which I did not use before knowing what language to use can make or break someone’s argument. I definitely apply this to the other writing I do in everyday life because if I know what I’m saying I can actually communicate to whatever audience. I think writing helps one understand knowledge and lets a person create an idea and it allows us to elevate the skills we learn in school or at a job to do something more, I think not being understood is why we still have misunderstandings a person might not be used to certain sentences or words. It’s kind of goes back to what we talked about in class about learning different languages. Being able to change your words for subjects can get difficult but being an author is very dependent on knowing your audience and being fluent in the language necessary to convey the idea you want.

Everyone has been writing from an early age in school and being exposed to new forms of writing as they grow and progress in their life. I had a very typical writing technique which was a three-sentence introduction because I used to follow the pyramid idea of like general statements then specific and finally thesis statement. The analysis was cliché and overused transitions and it was just horrible because I only did it to get the points and pass, but I believe that once I made it to 8th grade I found one form that really let me express my thoughts on a page. When I started writing poetry it was something new, but it was something that I picked up and felt comfortable doing. It was also during that time that I had grew emotionally, I found a way to speak my mind in that kind of writing because typically poems can be emotionally loaded or strange in content. I did not care about a tone or stance because they did not apply to me during that time. Writing was just me being free with my words and it was the most fun I had, I was allowed to explore any writing method I wished and grow without any real limit and with that experience I was better informed of what it really meant to be a writer.

Another thing that really changed my writing style was losing close loved ones in my family tree it sounds really sad and crazy but letting expressions and emotions go let me be braver in how I chose my words and let me use empathy and pathos to include in my writing. I began to see myself being able to connect with some rhetorical terms rather than others. I always struggled with purpose.  I think the last real event that changed my writing mindset or style was reaching my last year of high school that where my mindset was you’re at this point in your academic career where those little mistakes will not fly in the world and it will cause you to look less intelligent than you are. Papers were all I wrote in senior year, so it was off to the races when it came to essays or just general ideas that needed to be put down onto paper. In my senior year it was really about conveying messages and it was the last time I really wrote something that had meaning or when I tried new methods of conveying messages. Over the summer I really forgot how little techniques helped make my writer better.

If I were to look back on my past writing and compare it to now, I made no sense in my earlier essays. I would make a lot of grammatical errors or the way I sentenced things was the absolute worst. I’m sure that I still make mistakes but wow it is almost embarrassing reading older stuff, I feel that I definitely changed my objective from touching on an idea lightly to actually diving in and developing it. I could’ve been wrong in many ways, but I always tried to have evidence and outside the box thinking to explain my crazy/unique idea. I have noticed that I tend to forget the actual objective or goal of an essay or piece of writing because I go off on a giant rant and it might be decent writing, but it does not meet a requirement like my first paper for this class.

Each assignment I still want to apply the rhetorical terms because they can give a real insight to the way I should write something. Taking time to really learn the rhetorical terms again and implementing them in essays has been useful. Writing is a great tool and with each new thing I learn it because something incredible because you can start to use the skills more effectively and it helps my writing technique change so that the way I write, and the ideas do not become stale. I personally think I stink at writing to the highest extent but keeping in my mind that language to me is so important. I think my idea of writing is always going to change but it shall have at its core the idea of language. Being someone who deals with multiple languages I can appreciate how something is worded and the different ways to convey an idea in day to day life. Looking back at all the writing I’ve done I grew in mastering or at least becoming better on each aspect of writing. I always tried and I always needed room to grow and that’s why I think my idea of writing will never be defined in one sentence, but I will always remember what I put at the center of it.