Theory of Writing Essay Example for Free

Theory of Writing Essay Writing varies from a text message to a novel. Writers often have a difficult task in creating a piece of work that truly identifies the meaning of good writing. Every good writer usually starts with the basics such as genre, audience, rhetorical situation, and reflection of the piece. Throughout this semester, we have gone through all of these key terms in great detail with each new assignment that has come our way. In doing this, not only as students but also as writers, we have come to create our own theory of writing. Every writer has a different theory of writing though most are very similar. Now, at this point in the semester after doing countless journals, in-class exercises, and final assignments, I think I have figured out my own theory of writing. Theory of writing to me after all of these assignments is still a grey area but I can pick out main points of it. Theory of writing defined by me involves three main points. The first thing is how a writer does his or her best work. For instance, I like to do my writing at night when there is peace and quiet, almost to where I can hear aloud my own thoughts. Secondly, the theory includes what the writer does in planning. My planning includes no planning. I sit at my computer and just start typing all my thoughts on the screen until I do not feel like typing anymore. After that is done I usually cut the fat and revise all of my work. Lastly, I believe that the theory of writing process involves having one main goal in mind supported by smaller â€Å"sub-goals. † Like for example when doing my research essay on concussions in the NFL. I had the main topic of explaining concussions in the NFL with smaller â€Å"ingredients† helping me explain like the hits on a defenseless player rule and countless other ingredients to help me create my ultimate â€Å"burrito. Also in my theory of writing, I have learned to accept the four key terms (audience, genre, rhetorical situation, and reflection) as important concepts to keep in mind while writing all of the major assignments. Each term has a different meaning to me and I have learned more and more throughout this semester after each assignment. The very first assignment introduced me to these terms, where I still did not know exactly what they meant but I had a general idea. Look more:  process analysis essay I learned that genre affects what is being ritten because it sets the stage for what should be done and what readers expect by picking up the writing. Writers may go into writing a piece of art by combining a few genres but always have one genre that will shadow over the others. For example Martin Luther King Jr. ’s piece, â€Å"A Letter from Birmingham Jail,† has a specific genre, which is even stated in the title as a letter. King Jr. ’s piece can also be looked at as a persuasive essay because he is trying to convince his point of equality to the clergymen of Birmingham. When speaking of genre, I also have to incorporate audience because these two terms come hand in hand. A writer’s audience is the readers expectations of what they are going to be reading. Each genre usually has a specific audience. In the King Jr. speech, his initial audience was for the clergymen of Birmingham. Just like genre, there can be multiple audiences for one piece. King Jr. was also talking to the people who supported his equality point by saying we have waited too long for a change and need to act now. Rhetorical situation on the other hand was probably and still is the hardest key term for me to understand. I learned that Rhetorical situation is the circumstance in which you communicate. This involves the writer’s personal factors, the purpose of the writing, the genre, the audience, the topic, and the context for which you are writing. A writer’s personal factors include his or her background such as beliefs (religious or political), where they were raised, how they were raised, life experiences, etc. The purpose of writing is why as a writer you even started to write a certain piece. For instance the reason why I am writing this assignment along with the other three assignments is because I would like to receive a grade for my work. While doing this, I am also learning how to write better as a young adult going into the mature world where writing is key component in everyday life. Lastly, reflection is usually conceived as an after thought. Reflection is known to be more personal to the writer. This is good for a writer to link personal experiences into the writing. Not only is the author reflecting but also the audience too by creating a mental image in their head. Everyone will not have the same reflection because each individual thinks differently about various topics. For instance in the magazine article â€Å"Is Google Making us Stoopid? † by Nicholas Carr. Carr explains that Google is something you are researching rather than learning. In the article, Carr explains his reasoning like â€Å"When the Net absorbs a medium, that medium is recreated in the Net’s image. It injects the medium’s content with hyperlinks, blinking ads, and other digital gewgaws, and it surrounds the content with the content of all the other media it has absorbed. A new e-mail message, for instance, may announce its arrival as we’re glancing over the latest headlines at a newspaper’s site. The result is to scatter our attention and diffuse our concentration. † This quote makes me as a reader imagine someone clicking off the screen to another window where the email site is. It also makes me reflect on when I may have done this sort of action. I actually just minimized this paper because I just heard a Facebook chat message come in. Some people may not get distracted at all while reading. But this example shows how reflection comes about. Readers may not know this while reading, but most relate personal experiences while reading a certain piece. After learning these key terms in the first assignment, I tried applying this part of my theory to the rest of the assignments throughout the semester. During my research essay, I found myself thinking about my broad topic, concussions in the NFL. The NFL has such a big fan base that I did not know how to satisfy all of them. So my research essay was mainly for adults who do not know the science part of concussions and also doctors who do not know what football is trying to do about concussions. After finding out my genre and audience, I was able to use rhetorical situation and reflection in my paper as well by putting some of my own experiences with football into the paper. Overall, the research assignment though did not help me think about my theory of writing too much because I just looked at the assignment as another paper. On the other hand, the genre composition assignment opened my eyes wide open to my own theory of writing. The genre project was very different but help me realize how important genre and audience coherency really is. Like I established earlier, football has such a large audience that it is hard to incorporate all in one genre. So with three genres at hand, I was able to get almost every part of that audience. I broke the football audience into three groups: children, young adults, and adults. For each part of the audience, I had to think of a distinct genre to fit that audience. I ended up creating a video script for children, a magazine article for young adults, and a brochure for adults. Thinking of the different genres for the different audiences was not hard, but actually creating the different genres was difficult. It was difficult because as the writer I needed to think about the particular audience I was writing for. For instance when composing the script for the informational commercial, I needed to think about the children and what they would see when watching this since they were my target audience. Therefore, I need to write the script so a child can listen in and understand the message I am trying to get across about head injuries in football. I had to do this with all my audiences. That is why I think audience is the most important part of my writing theory. Coming into this class, rhetorical situation may have been the strongest part of my writing theory because I thought no matter what, you should always put some part of yourself in the writing. When doing the genre composition project, I felt like I did not put any of my own experiences into the writing so my previous theory had been compromised! Since I have come up with my own theory, I can now apply it to other writing assignments in school and also the real world. Writing is an essential part to the working world, and if one does not know how to write properly, they will not go far. I am going to be training to be a firefighter in the summer and next year while going to school. I want to ultimately work as a firefighter, which many would think does not involve a lot of writing. It actually does. Whenever the fire department is called out to a scene, a firefighter has to take a report of the scene and who was involved. If done improperly, the firefighter may be fired. Also when a firefighter moves up in rank to the lieutenant and captain positions, paperwork is their life. That is why I am in college now to learn essential skills that can be applied to firefighting and to also have a backup plan if firefighting does not work out. My theory of writing has grown throughout this semester and it will continue growing all my life until I die. It does not stop with this class, though this class has taught me a lot about certain key terms and has opened my eyes to new theories. I will add on to my theory of writing as I grow as a writer.