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Preliminary Theory of Writing: Reflection

When I look at Writing Project #1 there are many things that stand out to me. One of them being the lack of organization in my writing. The writing feels as though I am flipping between many different stories. For example, at one point I was talking about a game and its story to switching the topic to another reading all in the span of a few sentences. While also feeling as though it is being written just to be written, there is simply no flow in my writing.

While the organization is very poor in this paper I also notice a lot of run-on sentences and grammar mistakes, which definitely showed the lack of attention to detail I gave. While writing and editing the paper. There are also numerous amounts of punctuation errors that I have seen while looking back at my

paper.

There are many things that have changed since writing this paper. One of the things that have changed since

writing this paper is I feel that my organization in writing has definitely changed for the better, and also some of my ideas have changed since writing this paper, which I will touch on in Writing Project #3. While this paper is very poorly edited. It has given me the realization that I need to change the level of care given to my writing. I have someone review it to see if my wording makes sense and also I check my paper more often. While writing I also do not write entire pages in one night instead I break them into sensations and do a little every day. There are many things that I have learned from this paper one, no matter how many times I have reviewed a paper or who has review always give it one more check before submitting the work, I’ve also come to the conclusion that having a more planned out writing step like an outline will come in handy to organize what I am going to write. To ensure that all the points that I am trying to hit are made in the paper.

Writing Project 2: The correlation of length, time, and emotion in writing

When going over the data that was collected for this research paper I made a very interesting observation that being the length of writing, and the time spent on the writing, and how it affects emotions afterward.

Personally, I do not get many writing assignments, I typically only have to write maybe two to three pages a week. Nevertheless, the process for my writing is always the same. First I start to think of how to structure and organize what I will write I do this by talking it out by myself, even though it makes me look crazy it’s what works best for me, after organizing my thought, I put on a playlist of only instrumental music, and I start to write whatever comes to mind, no matter how it sounds or where it should go in the paper, whatever comes to mind I put it down. When I have finished with my mess of words I start to actually get serious and seriously out what I am trying to say. But when I actually have to write I write at night typically anywhere from 8 PM to 2 AM because it is the only time I can actually stay focus on my work. I get most of my writing from my Introduction to Business class, and my Writing and Rhetoric I class. In my Introduction to Business class, we are assigned weekly reports on anything

business-related, personally, I don’t really mind these or go all out with my writing but instead just map out what I plan to write and knock it out in a night. However, in Writing and Rhetoric, It can vary from our Read and Respond to a formal paper. For my Read and Respond, I typically do the same steps for my Business News Report. But for a formal essay, I go through a whole process of making diagrams, spending hours just thinking about how the paper should be structured, but when it comes to the actual writing, I write at night and have a playlist of nothing but instrumental to help me focus. One key factor I noticed when it came to emotion is the time spent on writing. For me, this is a deal-breaker. My personal rule of thumb is to never spend more than two hours straight writing without some sort of break or distraction to reduce the chance of me

becoming burnt out. The things that I notice for my writing is once I go over the two-hour mark I tend to get more lethargic and incoherent in my writing and just write whatever comes to mind without much

thought of what it is or how well it might fit in with the sentence or paragraph. But when I am under the two hours my mind is more jubilant and more focused on what I am trying to say or put into words. When having that lesser amount of time spent it gives me more confidence in what I am trying to say and giving more of a push to achieve better.

As for the length of the paper, this is also something that really does have a massive impact on how I view my writing. For anything I am passionate about I can write for what almost seems like an unlimited amount

of pages, but once it’s more restricted or something super narrow, like a lab report or quick response, I tend to dread writing those especially if it’s writing more than a few pages. For me, it feels like I’m writing just to write without much reason to write, and without a feeling, or reason, to write I naturally feel like my passion to write is also gone, and with that happening. I being to sulk about the outcome of my writing.

When reviewing my writing from the logging period I noticed when both length and time spent writing was in a good mix, that was when I always felt the best and most confident about my writing. That being a common trend, that I observed, among the data that was collected from my classmates. Whenever there was a happy medium between time spent and the length of writing there was typically a higher level of joy after writing. In several of the entries from my peers, they had to write about three pages worth of writing in under an hour where their emotion towards

that writing was ‘5/10’ whereas another group of people who wrote for a similar amount of time but less amount of writing had a more positive reaction towards their writing, for a page difference but in a similar amount of time most ratings were 7/10 not a huge increase, but three points could mean a lot for

someone.

With all the data that was collected, there is definitely a strong correlation between the length of writing and the time spent writing and how these affect the writer’s emotions

towards their work. The reason that this is

relevant to the data that I am collecting is that when both my peers and I are given an amount of writing and an accommodating mount of time to complete the writing, the data suggested that it can give the writer, in this case being my peers and I, more confidence to write. As for the Length of writing one professional writer does say something interesting. In “shitty First Drafts” by Anne Lamott, she says a very similar point, to what I argue, saying that no writer sits down and has an idea of where their

writing will go. Saying that it’s best to not set expectations because you never know where the writing might take you. When I read this, it gives the impression that those writers do not give themselves deadlines like “ I need to write X amount of pages or paragraphs, to feel accomplished.” Giving yourself unrealistic deadlines to write is

counter-intuitive to the point of writer, to bring joy from their writing and creating an idea and making it into something. There are also examples of professional writers who do think that the time spent writing is important. For example in the article “Goofing Off While the Muse Recharges” by Richard Ford, he talks about how it is important to take breaks while writing, giving more of a chance to recuperate a writer’s train of thought and time to think.

He sums it up perfectly when he says “protocol still causes even me to write too much. It's hard to write just enough.” All be it he was talking about taking a break in between large writing projects, I believe that it can also apply to breaks in between smaller writing projects as the saying goes “Death by a thousand paper-cuts,” there is still an important need to recharge in-between anything lest you want to drain yourself out.

To go on further of what Richard Ford said, it is beneficial for writers to take a break so that

the stresses of the last writing period fade away and don’t carry over to the next writing or project. Where he refers to a long amount of time spent writing I notice that in the data collected from my peers that the more time in between writing with a sufficient amount of time for a break gives less of the stress and achieves a more appropriate emotion towards the writing. In conclusion, when comparing the length of writing and the time spent writing and its effects on emotions towards the writing, from professionals, my peers, and myself, there were not many things that came to surprise me. However, one thing that did surprise me was the number of people that did write in long bursts or in short bursts. In addition to that, I do think several things need to be noted. Firstly there was an extension in time to collect data, two all the data was self-report with little to none 3rd party checking. Finally, COVID-19 has had unprecedented negative effects on my peers. The Coronavirus has inadvertently shifted my peers’ lesson plans around and forced them to take online classes

for the first time, which may have disrupted their writing styles and procedures. I do think there should be more research done from set

groups, in terms of majors, like STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) students to compare them to less writing focus majors and see if STEM has a different preference of length of writing and time spent writing compared to others majors, while also giving the participants more definite set of rules to follow.