When I was in elementary school, the paragraph was defined to me and my classmates as a collection of four sentences meant to bring a point across to the reader. As I have progressed as a writer, this writing convention has transformed into many things. I have used the paragraph to convince my reader of the unnecessary surplus of male chauvinism in The Great Gatsby, to express the failings of a powerful woman in the women's rights movement due to her pacifism, and analyse a scene from The Shawshank Redemption, comparing it to the Stephen King short story. In college this past year, I used them in a range of ways, from in a professional sense to describe my proposal on building a math-themed playground in Boston, to a stream-of- consciousness essay about photography. The constricted definition provided for me in third grade has altered to an unrecognizable state, as I string together words to write short stories, research essays, persuasive essays, major design proposals, music videos and everything in between. In this portfolio, I added the widest range of my work possible, aiming to show a range of ability instead of a focus.
The process I undergo as I write is different than the average writers, where thoughts are thrown on paper and editing is usually the most significant use of time. I spend more time planning than writing, and often spend less than thirty minutes editing my final product, because the intensive planning which went into my first draft makes it almost suitable as a final draft. This being said, I also put a good deal of time into my rough draft, choosing each word carefully to present a version of myself on paper who is endlessly more eloquent and well-spoken than I could ever hope to be in conversation. Due to this writing style, editing has become one of my weaknesses. I often do not want to or have the energy to alter my work at the end of my rough draft process. Or, if I spent a long time writing already, I become too attached to my work, and am unable to see its flaws.
This is probably why my favorite type of writing to complete is that in which I am provided with an open ended assignment, and can write my ideas as they come to me, without specific structure or organization. This still requires planning, but if I forget an important point or think of a new one, I can insert it wherever I want instead of reworking the writing piece as a whole. The audiences of these pieces are not intellectuals, but rather ordinary people who are excited to digest something intriguing. After all, writing something interesting to read is also infinitely more interesting to write.
My audiences, however, have often been professors of difficult subjects, and I have had to complete papers I do not totally understand myself. This statement was never more true than it was in my philosophy class, which contained mind-numbing texts which I had to decipher while simultaneously causing me to reconsider life as a whole. Existence became questionable, and arguments against any sort of life after death seemed irrefutable, as I wrote about in my Perry philosophy paper. Alternately, I have transformed subjects typically considered boring into pieces of interest by reworking them into a different medium than they are usually conveyed through. An example of this is my calculus video, in which I worked with my friend to convert our boring calculus notes into a music video, appropriately setting our lyrics to the tunes of "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" from Frozen, and Jay-Z's melodious "99 Problems". In some cases the teacher who will grade my work is my specific audience, as was the case when I wrote an essay slamming F. Scott Fitzgerald for writing only about poor examples of women in The Great Gatsby. This book was my then-teachers favorite piece of writing, and I could not resist setting up an intense argument against his favorite author. Other times, I write to the other students in a class that I am a part of. The best example of this would be when my group had to write a report for a major design project in Engineering Design. We wrote a proposal and report, outlining our idea to teach math to an unlikely audience, and gave a presentation to the class based off of it. In an effort to convince our class that our proposal was worth the time and money which would be put into it, we were focusing on holding interest in our class, rather than just keeping our professor entranced. Despite all this, I myself am the most dedicated and certainly most critical audience of my work. While it is true I write to earn a good grade, I am never happy with my work unless I successfully transfer to paper a truly well-written piece.
Reading through some of the earlier works in this portfolio, which were admittedly written only two years ago, I feel as though my writing has become stronger. Papers I thought were well written years ago are now somewhat lacking in interest or flow. However, my improved writing is more likely a combination of constant practice within classes, and a result of the fact that since coming to college, I have been mostly able to write about topics which interest me. Gone are the days in which I have to recount history, or analyse a book which has already been beaten to death by my teachers. It is now more common to use my own ideas in an essay or other writing prompt, instead of structuring my thoughts around a writer who I aim to analyse the work of. When I write a proposal for a project I feel passionate about, or a topic which is open ended enough to where I have freedom to take it anywhere, a paragraph gains so much value. This is when it converts from the basic definition I was presented with as an eight year old to whatever I want it to be.
The process I undergo as I write is different than the average writers, where thoughts are thrown on paper and editing is usually the most significant use of time. I spend more time planning than writing, and often spend less than thirty minutes editing my final product, because the intensive planning which went into my first draft makes it almost suitable as a final draft. This being said, I also put a good deal of time into my rough draft, choosing each word carefully to present a version of myself on paper who is endlessly more eloquent and well-spoken than I could ever hope to be in conversation. Due to this writing style, editing has become one of my weaknesses. I often do not want to or have the energy to alter my work at the end of my rough draft process. Or, if I spent a long time writing already, I become too attached to my work, and am unable to see its flaws.
This is probably why my favorite type of writing to complete is that in which I am provided with an open ended assignment, and can write my ideas as they come to me, without specific structure or organization. This still requires planning, but if I forget an important point or think of a new one, I can insert it wherever I want instead of reworking the writing piece as a whole. The audiences of these pieces are not intellectuals, but rather ordinary people who are excited to digest something intriguing. After all, writing something interesting to read is also infinitely more interesting to write.
My audiences, however, have often been professors of difficult subjects, and I have had to complete papers I do not totally understand myself. This statement was never more true than it was in my philosophy class, which contained mind-numbing texts which I had to decipher while simultaneously causing me to reconsider life as a whole. Existence became questionable, and arguments against any sort of life after death seemed irrefutable, as I wrote about in my Perry philosophy paper. Alternately, I have transformed subjects typically considered boring into pieces of interest by reworking them into a different medium than they are usually conveyed through. An example of this is my calculus video, in which I worked with my friend to convert our boring calculus notes into a music video, appropriately setting our lyrics to the tunes of "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" from Frozen, and Jay-Z's melodious "99 Problems". In some cases the teacher who will grade my work is my specific audience, as was the case when I wrote an essay slamming F. Scott Fitzgerald for writing only about poor examples of women in The Great Gatsby. This book was my then-teachers favorite piece of writing, and I could not resist setting up an intense argument against his favorite author. Other times, I write to the other students in a class that I am a part of. The best example of this would be when my group had to write a report for a major design project in Engineering Design. We wrote a proposal and report, outlining our idea to teach math to an unlikely audience, and gave a presentation to the class based off of it. In an effort to convince our class that our proposal was worth the time and money which would be put into it, we were focusing on holding interest in our class, rather than just keeping our professor entranced. Despite all this, I myself am the most dedicated and certainly most critical audience of my work. While it is true I write to earn a good grade, I am never happy with my work unless I successfully transfer to paper a truly well-written piece.
Reading through some of the earlier works in this portfolio, which were admittedly written only two years ago, I feel as though my writing has become stronger. Papers I thought were well written years ago are now somewhat lacking in interest or flow. However, my improved writing is more likely a combination of constant practice within classes, and a result of the fact that since coming to college, I have been mostly able to write about topics which interest me. Gone are the days in which I have to recount history, or analyse a book which has already been beaten to death by my teachers. It is now more common to use my own ideas in an essay or other writing prompt, instead of structuring my thoughts around a writer who I aim to analyse the work of. When I write a proposal for a project I feel passionate about, or a topic which is open ended enough to where I have freedom to take it anywhere, a paragraph gains so much value. This is when it converts from the basic definition I was presented with as an eight year old to whatever I want it to be.