Lucie Berjoan - Blog Post 2

 Much of what was outlined in the chapter on writing processes mirrored my own experience writing academic texts. To begin, I come up with a list through brainstorming, asking questions, and pulling out parts of texts that I've underlined in my research. I then try to wrestle this list into a kind of outline that lists the main ideas and their supporting ideas, which I think of as the skeleton of the essay. For this, I reference the original prompt or essay topic a lot and make sure I am responding to all the questions asked. I try to organize it a bit, thinking about the order and flow and what relates to what. Then, I try to fill in the paragraphs, or the meat of the essay, by free writing. This process usually works well enough to end up with a rough idea of what the main paragraphs of the essay will look like. I'll usually print this out and edit it on a hard copy as I find it slows the revision process down, which allows me to spend time with the content and work on sentence level revisions without losing sight of the original text. The last thing I do is write my introduction and conclusion paragraphs. I find that by doing the main body of the essay first, I can ensure that what I outline in my intro reflects more accurately what the essay actually does rather than what I hope it does. My writing process has been largely influenced by my poetry practice. Writing mostly from edited down free writes allows me to get ahead of the editor in my head and actually get my ideas down on paper without inhibiting myself. It was also through poetry that I learned how vital revision is to the final product. I worry a little bit that my allegiance to my own writing process might inhibit me from understanding more chaotic and unstructured writing processes. As someone who hates leaving things to the last minute, sometimes I can be unsympathetic to a writing process that fails to recognize the value in the details. I am certain, however, that this is something I will encounter and learn to deal with in the writing center, as I think most students see papers as the means to the end of their work rather than the work itself. 

Comments

  1. ConorSeptember 7, 2020 at 3:07 PM

    I can definitely relate to the early parts of your writing process, though I wish I had your commitment to revision! I should try using hard-copies or finding some alternative way to slow the process down, because I often find myself just skipping ahead when I try to revise digitally—far too easy to jump down the page.

    I often find myself needing to totally revise my introduction after actually writing the paper, so perhaps I should try just leaving it off until the end (though I think some sort of goal, even if it ends up changing helps me focus? I don’t know, actually).

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