The time is 1:38am and here you find yourself up late struggling to write another essay. Is it really worth it to crush another energy drink and grind out another page? Or is it time to throw in the towel and try to get at least two hours of sleep? Writing in and of itself can be a struggle for some, a complete mental mind war for others. But what is the hardest part of writing one may ask themselves? In my personal experience a number of complications tie themselves for, “biggest writing dilemmas that I face”. Staying on subject, communicating the subject, and confidently selecting a subject, are all the major things I found myself struggling with as a writer.
For some, the hardest part about writing was working around the constraints of writing. People usually struggle when their go-to-way of writing a paper has been taken from them and replaced with an unfamiliar and completely different style. An example of this occurred my English 102 second essay. This assignment students had to build a persuasive essay, however, they had to have their thesis, aka what they were trying to argue for, in the last paragraph. In other words, students were tasked with arguing a point without the reader explicitly knowing your side until the end of the essay. While the tactic was useful to portray a sense of non-biased writing and keep the reader engaged in a, “neutral” article, some found it hard to subtly convince the reader of their point without making it blatantly obvious. On this assignment, among others, I found that this was not where the problem in my writing laid. My conflict with the assignment was trying to choose a clear topic to argue and not make both sides seem too equal. In the second paragraph I believe I lead to strongly in the opposing direction, possibly turning off an audience that would have agreed with the overarching message. In stating, “To begin, one only has to look at where the average person receives their news from. A study conducted by Harvard University showed that 55% of Americans kept up with daily news, and half of those individuals received their daily news from social media sights such as Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.” (Freedom of The Internet) I negated a lot of my own points because they didn’t concern the average person. My following arguments concerned those who were adept and knowledgeable enough to navigate the lesser-known web, while the average person suffered from a censored online environment. This failure to select a clear subject left readers confused when I finally stated the thesis because it was not supported strong enough. In future projects, I took time before writing to write down on paper what the subject was and how my main points would relate to this subject.
Another challenge I faced as a writer was communicating the subject. In our first writing assignment, students were tasked with analyzing another author’s work and explaining not only what the observed piece was about, but by what methods the author used to prove their own point. Throughout the essay I was able to dive into what the author had wrote about and how that influenced their audience, however, I was unable to communicate the subject and failed to talk about the methods the writer used. Both of these failures were prevalent throughout my own essay, “The final sentence of the conclusion, however, works in the favor of pro college side, “That way, regardless of each graduate’s ultimate path, all might be qualified to be carriers of arts and letters, of which the nation can never have too many”.” (Is College Worth It?). In that quote I showed what the author talked about in their own essay but ended the paragraph with that sentence. No where in that paragraph did, I discuss the method used to convince the audience, I simply only stated what was stated. In this way I failed to communicate the subject of my own essay. However, after realizing this, I started to go back through and make sure that what I wrote addressed the prompt, or subject of the assignment.
The final dilemma I found myself facing as a writer was staying on subject. In our final, “hard topic” assignment, I explored a problem facing the Virginia Military Institute and came up with a solution to that problem. Throughout the writing, however, the subject of the piece appeared to change between, “lack of bonding after the ratline” and “deep dive into life at VMI”. While trying to describe how the lack of bonding events after the ratline lead to a lack of company cohesion, I think I went too in depth and talked too much about the ongoings of VMI as a whole. An example, “Before the Thanksgiving break, a prime example of this occurred. A first classmen and leader of Army ROTC communicated with Air Force ROTC leadership to host a competition between the two ROTC’s” (Company Cohesion). In this quote I delved too deep into what happened between the two ROTC’s instead of keeping in concise and focusing on the main point of, “lack of bonding events”. To avoid this problem, in future essays I would thoroughly reread what I had wrote and check every few sentences to make sure what I had wrote goes to supporting and staying on subject.
In conclusion, while writing has been challenging in some aspects, taking time to reflect on the issues in one’s own writing can lead to becoming a better author. Realizing my issues with staying on subject, choosing a clear subject, and communicating the subject, allowed me to better prepare myself for future writing assignments. It also showed that my main problem was taking the time to more carefully prepare and revise my own essays.
Sources
Freedom of The Internet -James Boe
Is College Worth It? -James Boe
Company Cohesion -James Boe