Nathan B. Alford
Response to Osborne, Writing About Writing, pp. 647-652
Help Received: None
When I’m composing an essay, I find that I’m a lot like Osborne in that I never really know where to start. I know what I want to write about, however I have a very hard time forming my thoughts into words. It takes several cycles of writing and rewriting until I have an idea of how I want my paper to sound. One tactic that works for me is writing the body of my paper first, then composing the introduction later.
While this method of writing works, it is not a very effective way to write for several reasons. First, I waste way too much time “experimenting” with my words. Second, writing the body of the paper before I write my introduction makes it hard to tie my claims in with my thesis and make the paper flow smoothly. One thing which I think may help my composing process is writing outlines. I never really give myself enough time to write them, but writing an outline is great for organizing thoughts and getting an idea of how I want my paper to flow and sound. This is something I am going to try with my final paper in this class.