I’m not sure how I am going to write this essay. I generally know my personal approach to writing. My main goal of writing is to get my ideas across. Writing for me is a stream of conscious, a stream I ride to completion.

When I was younger, writing was simple, to the point. The paragraphs or even essays I had written in class conformed to a formula. I feel like this was the beginning of my downfall in relation to writing. For me, writing because systematic, and I would seldom do any thinking while I wrote my pieces. As I grew older, these formulas grew in complexity. What used to be three-body paragraph essays soon became hefty hamburgers and what not. At some point, I just didn’t get it anymore. I rarely touched writing assignments, unless they seemed simple and to the point. I had severe difficulty comprehending texts, and even more so in place my ideas onto the page. Needless to say, I did not have a good relationship with writing. Adding onto the turmoil, Previous years were polluted with rigorous writing classes, where I further plunged into burnout. What kinda made it click for me was when we learned about the writing styles of those who enveloped the Beat Generation: Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg come to mind. For some reason, this idea of spontaneous prose worked well for me. Finally what really cemented my process were the intricate tales of Clarissa Dalloway & friends. The way Virginia Woolf managed to detail her characters to such an extreme extent, having each character’s stories meld into one another’s was simply fantastical. When I approach a paper— that is if I approach it — I try to get down as much as possible. Writing down as much as I can, some of it is bound to be usable.

That was the ‘me’ coming into this class. I wasn’t particularly excited for this class because writing and I don’t mix. I am the type of person that would “work all day if it meant nothing got done.” My mind will come up with things to do. I will cook dinner, bake bread, make cookies, wash the dishes, anything except writing. I will usually procrastinate. It is something I would love to stop doing (I think), but at this point, it is almost habitual. The appeal of procrastinating is the pleasure of instant gratification. Other than that, there are strictly no additional benefits. However, I am not procrastinating as hard on this assignment, mainly because it has come to my attention that I had planned my week poorly. I had decided that I would rather have all-nighters that were spread out during the week, as opposed to being pummeled to the ground with the lack of sleep. Additionally, it seems that this essay was due at a later date than was expected, and as a result, it looks like more time could be put into this essay.

At first, I wasn’t particularly sure what I would take away from this class. I kind of feared that I would take in information and proceed to quickly lose grasp of it. This was my first college-level writing course, and I wasn’t sure what would be in store for me. The first assignment was the  Essay. Its purpose was to further explore the components that make up a rhetorical situation. Fortunately, we were given a sort of formula for the assignment, however I knew at that point that formulas could be limiting. I believe that formulas are playing it safe, but you lose something in that safety. I found it difficult to find and enhance my “voice” within the essay, as the aim of the essay was very straightforward. I try to make it seem like I the writer am going on a journey writing this essay; I want the writing to reflect a thinking and conversing being. When I write, I want the writing to replicate a conversation. It’s often said that only when you can explain a concept to another person and have them understand it, do you really have a firm understanding of said concept. I want to assure myself that I know what I am discussing. If the prompt is one-dimensional, I struggle in finding the motivation required to express myself. Motivation in general is a large problem for me.

Now, I’ll be looking at how I wrote the first essay assignment. I personally noticed that as the essay stretched on, I seemed to have gotten more and more bored by the assignment. I found that when this happens I tend to stick more to the formula. I am not sure if this is a stylistic choice, as it was the point of the assignment. The introductions of each paragraph are as follows: “In the Oxford Companion to United States History…”, “In the article, ‘Artificial Intelligence, Robots, and Work: Is This Time Different? As technological innovation has eliminated many types of jobs over the past few centuries, economies have evolved to create new jobs that have kept workers well employed. Is there reason to worry that the future will be different?’…”, “In the New York Times article, ‘Fear Not the Coming of the Robots’…”, and “The Vox video titled, ‘The big debate about the future of work, explained,’…”. I often try to prevent myself from being repetitive in word choice or structure, unless I am emphasizing on something, but since the essay’s focus is just to delve deeply into four literary pieces, I found that difficult.

The composition in two genres was an opportunity for me to show more of myself in the writing. For the assignment I had written a short script, and a poster to go along with the movie the script was for. I personally enjoy the more creative assignments, if it wasn’t clear enough already. I had previously written scripts for another class, and I was surprised at the time when I had found enjoyment in doing it. When writing scripts, I try to think up of a scene; one that is bold and may or may not be climactic. For this particular assignment, since it was in relation to technology, I had many themes pop up in my mind: technology (of course), government, and the dichotomy of control and resistance. These are some common themes, I think, are relevant to my topic, as well as to the social climate we face today. From my rationale, I think it was clear that I had possibly thought way too much about the plot of the script. “This story takes place in a dystopian wasteland, but it centers over the center city which from the outside seems like a wonderful metropolis, filled with the great wonders of technology. However, it is clear that the government has a tight grasp on most of what happens.” When writing fiction, I prefer if I have a light outline of what is to occur in my head. I would usually think about this in say the train or in the bathroom. You might think that this is somewhat contradictory with the “stream of consciousness” method of writing, but I find that It helps if the writing, while constant and unfiltered, is grounded by some main ideas.

Something I do a lot of, more so in creative pieces, is drawing from media I’ve consumed. I spend an overwhelming majority of my time watching YouTube videos, not all of which may be education-related, but some is. For example, when the Korean movie “Parasite” was rising to fame, There were a few videos featuring the director discussing his movie. I thought that the topics he had spoken about in the video applied to my essay so I included it, and an explanation linking it back to the main essay: “A recent example would be ‘Parasite’, a widely popular Korean film that has achieved world-wide acclaim. Imbued within the narrative of ‘Parasite’, are symbols of class, social critique, climate change, and much more. To tell a worthy story and to leave the viewers with a deep message about society or life as a whole, is what I believe movies are for.” I think this is one way that I try to put my “voice” into an essay; my way of showing myself in the writing.

Throughout my academic career, I have never found in-class proofreading sessions useful. People usually targeted grammar mistakes rather than structure problems, which were the problems I had faced the most. I usually edit my sentences while writing. Considering I constantly reread what I am writing, pre-editing is inevitable. 

Now I would like to further address academic pieces. I think it’s clear that most of the academic pieces I have written feature a main argument or thesis. Usually when approaching theses types of essays, first, I’ll do the presearch (intentional). From the research, I’ll try to see whether a specific argument is easy to argue for. Whether there is just more information supporting it, or the argument fundamentally is stronger, I will often find myself sticking with the easier to accomplish assignment. The only time I would go against this philosophy is if there is another argument or assignment worth doing. For example, for the composition of two genres, there were more simpler choices that I could have done instead of what I had chosen. However, the idea of drawing a poster of a movie that I had also created seemed like a very exciting idea, and when I had finished, I felt proud for what I had done.

While this isn’t directly connected to how I writing, it is important to understand my mentality while writing. For the longest time, I had struggled to understand why I needed to write. For me, writing was just for English classes and other supplemental essays. There are two things that helped me address this state of mind. This class is one. You helped me realize that writing is ingrained into my life as is it is. From texting to emails, in addition to essays, learning how to write is very much relevant to my academic life as well as my practical life. The second thing, the person rather, was Jordan Peterson. He is a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. He also has a YouTube channel where uploads his many lectures. He also uploads any in-class questions his students ask him. In one of those videos, a student asks him a question on learning how to think critically, and he responds that the best way to learn critical thinking is to write. The video is called “Jordan Peterson on the Power of Writing” if you are interested. He emphasizes the importance of writing for all students. He says, “What blows me away about universities is that no one ever tells students why they should writing something… You need to learn to think because thinking makes you act effectively in the world. Thinking makes you win the battles you undertake, and those could be battles for good things. If you can think and speak and write, you are absolutely deadly. Nothing can get in your way.” This quote really hit me hard, and made me realize the power of writing. The ability to organize your ideas into coherent and cohesive ideas are what make you, as a contributor to the greater society, an integral part of the working world. Another piece that radiates the same idea and energy is that of “This is Water”, by David Foster Wallace. While it’s a book, It’s original form is of a commencement speech. In the speech, he speaks on the purpose of higher education, which comes out to be teaching students how to think, because it is how you think that will affect your perspective on life. I think this quote summarizes his argument quite well: “Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience.”

This is my theory of writing.