essay 1 reflection

I think I’ve learned a fair amount about writing from this assignment. One thing I’ve noticed about my personal writing style is that I benefit from creating a fairly detailed outline beforehand. However, I do not always stick exactly to the plan. I’ve found that after I’ve created my rough draft, my final draft does not usually differ in major ways, sometimes I expand on things I’ve left out, or I change my structure on a sentence or paragraph, but the overall content barely changes. One thing I need to work on is repetition of words and grammar/punctuation. My reasoning on the other hand, seems to be fairly solid, or at least that is what I was least asked to change. The main issue I have with writing is speaking to an audience I do not know, and judging for myself what an appropriate length is.

Analytical writing about history seems to be fairly easy, if somewhat complex. The rules of writing seem to stay the same, give the reader background on the argument, tell them both sides, then tell them in detail why your argument is correct using large amounts of facts. The change is merely the subject; I believe I would write the same exact way if I was writing a scientific article.

My writing philosophy is multifaceted. The main thing I believe is that writing, in all its forms, is used as a form of self analysis. When writing, a person must put their thoughts on to paper. However, first they must organize their thoughts into words. While they organize their thoughts, they must also analyze their reasons, look at them and judge whether they are truly accurate. Secondly I believe writing should be used in 3 different ways. One way is to inform people in correlation with other tools, such as graphs and charts, and it can take the form of a memo or an article. Another reason to write is to entertain other people and myself by taking otherwise unheard of stances or by trying to look at things from an angle that is skewed from the normal perception. I believe all forms of writing can be done in argument form, however that form lends itself best towards analytical and occasionally informational writing. In summary, my writing philosophy is that I write to inform, self analyze, and entertain.