Response to Murray, Writing About Writing, pp. 65-75
Help Received: None
- In All Writing is Autobiography, Donald Murray introduces the concept of what I have termed the “autobiographical fingerprint” in which every writer, regardless of what specific type of writing they are doing, leaves traces of their own, custom writing style in every piece they create. This fingerprint may be composed of childhood memories, traumatic life experiences, or allusions to current events. These give character to a piece of writing and experienced writers may be able to identify the author of a paper based only on the traces left behind. Murray also implies that two writers, given the same prompt and boasting the same level of expertise in literary composition, will respond completely differently to the given prompt based on their own autobiographical fingerprint.
- Murrays ideas, rather than encouraging me to write with a different style, actually perform the opposite task in that it motivates me to continue to write with the style I have been writing with all along, maybe even more blatantly. His ideas state that through my life experiences, I have made my writing style my own, and therefore I should be proud of it because it is unique from that of any other writer on this planet. Why should I write any differently than what comes naturally to me?