Monday, January 12, 2009

The Ultimate Paper

     When I am given a writing assignment, I do one of two things. These two things are very different and I usually do the one that is looked down upon by teachers. This is the art of procrastination.  When I am given a paper to write I will usually wait until the last minute to begin writing this. I think this is because it takes me forever to figure out what I should write about. Once I figure out what to rack my brain about I can write the paper pretty fast. Though with my first draft it is usually quite rough and will require at least two more drafts. 
     My pre-writing is my weakest aspect and needs the most work. I think that the best process for me is the actually body of the paper. The introduction and the conclusion then follow.
     In the reading towards the end it gave several hints to help with your pre-writing process. These can be found on page 98 of the Penguin Handbook. It basically tells us to pick something that you like to write about and then choose the audience that you think will best fall into the category of your writing and then point your paper to them and keep them in mind while writing. 

2 comments:

Lance Harper said...

Why is it that getting started is always the hardest? Pre writing is always my weakest part too because I feel that it doesn't get very much accomplished for me personally, but my writing might be better if I did do it.

Scott said...

I think we all have a little procrastinator in us somewhere. I think it is just part of the "natural man" :) Something that helps me is everyday leading up to due date, I will spend 20-30 minutes thinking of ideas and gathering information for the paper. This way you don't blow your mind and you will actually be surprised at the amount of writing you will have by the end. Also, because you do it over a series of days, you allow your mind to continually come up with fresh, new thoughts that can be adapted and applied to your paper.