Weekly Reading Response Blog 1
What is the author's main idea, and how is it relevant to this week's lesson?
In “Ten Ways To Think About Writing: Metaphoric Musings for College Writing Students” by E. Shelley Reid, the main idea is to tell the reader a simple fact: writing is hard, no matter how experienced you are at it. Even as you climb the ladder in terms of skill, there is always going to be a sentence you’re hung up on or a temporary writer’s block to vault over.
After introducing this universal problem, the author gives a few different perspectives on writing for us novice writers to peer through. This paper relates to this week’s lesson by helping us understand what to expect during the term: reading and writing a lot in order to make writing just a little bit less torturous.
What did you find most interesting about the assigned reading(s)?
The most interesting thing that I found from the reading is the way that the writer expresses themselves. It’s as if you’re having a casual yet academic conversation with them. It’s alluring to read.
As a writer, how do you relate to the assigned reading(s)?
I think it’s an understatement when I say that the section on description and detail hit my writing process right on the nose. I tend to overthink the amount of detail that I should include in my writing to the point where my fingers lock up, I shut off the computer, climb into bed, curl myself into a ball, and cry myself to sleep. I would say most people struggle with the oversimplification of such variables (adjectives, nouns, verbs) to the point where they don’t even want to describe the object anymore.
What do you feel is the most important statement or idea in the assigned reading(s)?
The most important idea that I gathered from the paper is this: when you’re writing to help the reader understand something, (e.g., writing rhetorically) throw out most of the stuff that you’ve been told about writing by your teachers, and just write. Those structures you’ve been told to follow are mostly arbitrary and shouldn’t dictate how you express yourself on paper. The rules are more similar to training wheels rather than a rulebook.
If a peer reviewer tells you something like, “This is more confusing to read than trying figure out how the shower works at a friend’s place without asking,” then I would recommend trying to structure your writing.
What is something you found in the assigned reading(s) that you can immediately apply to your writing?
When writing, instead of conforming your writing to the needs of the teacher, you should rather conform to the needs of the audience. Writers don’t necessarily have to follow the rules they’re given to communicate the same information — it just makes the writing more predictable and easier to digest.
Of course, this is something that as a writer we choose whether or not to balance given our style of writing and the circumstances in which we are writing.
The Three Simplified Principles of Writing
- Write about what you know about, are curious about, are passionate about (or what you can find a way to be curious about or interested in).
- Show, don’t just tell.
- Adapt to the audience and purpose you’re writing for. - E. Shelley Reid