Writers on Writing and Our Writing Process of Writing Project #2

Prof. Marx, I thaught the whole reason for writing was to communicate what one thinks in the best possible way. Now I would love to just get all my thaughts down as they come. I wish I had a printer attached to me at all times. If people could see my raw thaughts, they would understand me best

Prof Marx, I agree with you, when I discussed my paper with you, I got new ideas that I included in my paper.

Thanks Prof.Marx

Kristin, 29 people though all of them were appropritate. That was an acceptable answer for me. Thanks for doing my poll!

Prof. Marx,
I think almost every sentence for me is somewhat of a tense experience...unless of course it sounds good fom the beggining.

Alex,
Staying engaged in a topic is a special feat indeed. Part of that comes from choosing or crafting a topic in such a way at the beginning that you will remain interested in it. Another thing to do is to keep the learning process alive even as you are writing/revising the paper. Don't stop researching or thinking just because you have begun to write. Perhaps you can discover new ideas that can give new directions or meanings to your paper. Another trick is to focus on different aspects of the task as you are revising it. If you try to do everything at once it will get repetitious.

Kristen I agree with you also. Hard work is key when you want something to turn out good. Writting is just one example.

Every single paper I write and will write will be tough. There has never been a time where I said, wow this is simple-2hrs tops...It seems like it is always a long drawn out process just to get myself to sit down to write a paper.

I also had some trouble deciding what terms to use in identifying people- male, female... i guess that's a good sign that we are thinking about what we read.

sarah-when you asked people what words they thought were not appropriate to call females, did any of them say that they didn't mind any of them? or did you make them feel like they had to give you an answer?

Yes Rory, I am sure you set them good and straight...Did you show your manly aggressiveness?

Prof. Marx- I don't think i have ever written a paper that has been easy. every writing process needs a lot of thinking, which can be a lot of work. Hard work is needed if we want things to come out good. we cannot take the easy way out of things-especially in writing.

how about men and women?

Not actually, I had people who answered the questions without joking.

The females tended to take it more seriously than the boys did. I feel like after reading Lakoff I don't know what to call men and women anymore???

Anna,
Yes I found that a lot of people thought it was a big joke until I straightened them out!

I think I'm ready for a new topic too, proxemics is beggining to lose its impact for me.

Since Sarah invites us to pay attention to spelling. . .
Hillary, I love your misspelling of sentence as *sentense*: how much of writing a sentence is a tension filled, anxiety laden process?

to all of you Lakoff people out there- was it really hard to get people to answer your questions seriously?

Thanks Chuck...

I too agree with chuck and clarence. I felt that the analysis was the hardest part. taking what i recived from the survays and putting that information in to the paper was very difficult. the people did not answer the questions the way i was excepting and then i had to think about the information a lot more and figure out how i was going to take the info and use it in the paper.

I also agree with Chuck that analising the data was the most difficult. I also had a tough time with terminology. Should I have deviated from what I'm used to generically calling women in papers (which is women) or do I use FEMALE because it fits Lakoff's theories?

Kristin--Glad you agree. It's too bad that we often forget how hard and demanding writing is. About 15 years ago, a composition textbook came out by two highly respected professors at Brown University. We were reviewing it for possible adoption at the University of Michigan. When one of the faculty came across the line that good writing is easy, he instantly dismissed the book and said we could not use it!

whoops-I meant mediocre...

bless you Reet

i guess i also can get sick of rewriting a paper over and over again. i try to forget about for a day or two and then start up on it again. this way i have some new ideas - hopefully - and i won't get bored too quickly of writing the paper.

From this paper I was able to see a lot about how I learned to write in the first place. My mom is a writer, so I grew up with her over my shoulder, editing everything that I wrote sentense by sentense. Now I have a really hard time when something I write is not mediocre, I always want it to come out perfectly. And I find that this leads to a lot of my frustrations with writing, especially in the rough draft.

Yes, after two weeks proxemics is wearing thin. I am looking forward to a different topic. However, proxemics was very interesting at first. My friend from the Middle East said that everything in the Proxemics essay is true, except, she says that there is a word for rape. Sorry, I can't pronounc or spell it.

so sorry

Prof. Marx, how do stop yourself from getting sick of a paper?

Anna I SPELL MY NAME WITH AN H!!!!!!!

sara- i know what you mean about getting sick of a paper. i can usually expect this to happen. because of this i have developed a bad habbit of writing in the last minute.

I would have to agree with chuck in saying the analysis of data was the hardest. There is so much involved in reaching the point were you have to say "What does this data do for my paper?," and "How can it be used to tell the reader what I have learned?"

prof. Marx-that quotation is so true. Writing is very hard work.

Mr Marx,
I definitely see your point of view but actually I saw it the other way because I was trying to make a connection to my writing style. It is interesting that you see it your way because the more I think about it I like your perception better.

I definitely feel more confident about my paper when I have had it and worked on it for a couple of days.

I too feel that more time to work on a paper gives us the chance to make it better. Now that I know what the typewriter quote means I take back my first statement. The Fowler quotation is the one for chuck.

hillary- i agree, your revisions of the paper were very dramatic, which is good. Whenever i make big changes with a paper i feel like i am automatically making it better.

Anna and Rory, The length of time was good in some ways, but also after all that time I got sick of my paper and Lakoff. This hurt my writing.

Kristin, Another quotation I had but didn't post was that writing is the only hard work that doesn't involve heavy lifting!

I also like how there are several days between the working draft and the final draft. if i was only given like one or two days, i don't think any of my papers would be written to their full potential.

rory- i agree, the length of time that we spend on papers in this class is really great, it's less stressful and better papers come out if it.

The interesting thing about this paper was that it was such a clear expression of the way I processed and preceived information, that it was almost like seeing the refinement of my thoughts on paper.

Rory,
Your response is interesting because I think I read the quotation in exactly the opposite way than you did. Rather than imagining a room where the typewriter/keyboard seems to have a life of its own it is typing to fast, so automatically,I took it to mean that the writing process is actually very slow, so slow that almost no writing occurs. It sounds like a room with just a typewriting humming in it but with no one inside doing any typing. Does that make sense.

I think I learned a lot by actually thinking about my paper and from the surveys. I was totally unaware that there could exist a separate way females speak, and I think the way females speak confirm the stereotypes that are out there.

writing a paper is a tiring process, but if a good paper is written being tired can be rewarded. once the paper is done, then it is just one less thing to worry about.

I find that when my writing process is spread out over a couple of days like we do in 105 I am much more successful. My worst habit is that I leave everything for the last minute so the process helps me organize my time. I can write my first draft and then put it down for a while. Then when I read it I have an objective point of view and can revise it better than if I do it all in one night. Therefore by the end I am not exhausted.

Although the paper was very diffucult, I learned a lot about proxemics and different cultures.I gave me an understanding about how other cultures work in society.

Kristin- i agree, if i have absolutely no connections to the paper it is most likely going to be horrible because i just dont care aboutit.

the analysis of data was definitely the hardest part because it was difficult to distinguish useful things from irrelevant things. I used some semi-colons this time.

I have to say that I can relate mot to Gene Fowler's little quote the most out of the selections we were given; but my typwriter, or rather word processer keyboard here will not let me ramble like I want it to. I love to talk, and wish that I could type as fast as I think and talk. I've been reading a lot of writers who, when they write, seem to write what it is the're thinking. Kurt Vonneget(misspelled) and Henry Miller for instance. Some of the sentences will be short ad choppy, but work together as a whole. Other sentences might be lengthy. It's the ideas and thaught process that are the most important and I want to be able to spill my thaughts out on paper and see them for exactly what they are.

The first passage corresponds to my experiance with writting project #2 because I had a lot of trouble starting this paper and after I did I rewrote the first parragraph alone about 15 times. This topic was hard to talk about because body language, witch is what I wrote about is very hard to talk about. It is something that all of do although we don't realize it. Trying to write about it, I found very difficult. I wrote and reworte again and again. I asked for help and looked over what I was writting alll the time.

Hillary, me too. I feel drained after writing a paper. Before I actually sit down to write my paper, I will think of about 1000 things I "have" to do first.

anna-i think that's good that you learned something about yourself from this paper. I don't think i enjoyed writing this paper as much as you did. but i also think that it is much easier to write a paper and revise it when you are learning something and enjoying writing it.

Like Kazin, I learned a lot about myself throug writing this paper. I concentrated on issues involving women that I normally wouldn't have thought about. This enriched my understanding of the power of language.
I also had a simular experience as Swift. The paper was not just about my ideas, but how to get them across powerfully. This is the hard part.

The Fran quote probably best explains my experiencs with writing paper #2. I found that the analyzation section of the paper was the most diffucult.Actually, the whole paper and everything about it was diffucult.

Hillary, so what did you learn about yourself in writing this paper?

It seems like every paper is such a huge process for me to go through that by the end I am just exhausted.

i guess when i bite my nails ideas just pop into my head.

I feel that I mostly identify with Alfred Kazin. I believe in order to write a good paper your ideas should flow on the paper in a order that's relevant to the writer. When I write I must first set up an order in which I stratergize what goes first to last. When I am finished writing I feel releaved to know that my paper is the way that I thought it would be.

I dont really see myself as a writer, creative or just essays. I have a strong connectio with the statement by Alferd Kazin. This past writing assignment I felt like I really learned something from myself. It was one of the few papers that I actually enjoyed spending time one, this is why i had no problems revising it and working on it. When I learn something about myself from a writing seminar paper, it really makes me respect writing in a way i never have.

Although none of these are anything like my writing process, number one sums up what a tedious process it can be. I am unable to see my own writing from someone else's point of view, so it is very difficult for me to revise my own paper.

The first quote seems to correspond to my writing process. I look at what suggestions were made to me and what corrections need to be made. I take out some things, correct other things, expand some of my ideas, make other ideas smaller...etc. and i when i can't think of anything to add in i sit in front of my computer and think, and sometimes i actually do bite my nails.

Every paper that I have worked on in my entire paper writing career has sounded like I left the room and left the typewriter running. My writing is very wordy and every paper that I write has all these little two or three word sayings that don't need to be in my paper. This is why I picked Fowler's quote. The typewrtiter keeps running and adding in unncessary words. In this paper I paid special attention to the running typewriter(my mind) and took out all of the unncessary sayings/words.

I guess I can relate most to the second passage because I learn a lot about myself when I write. It was very satisfying to go from the rough draft which I didn't like at all, to my final draft which I thought was a lot better.

I agree with Fran Lebowitz about writing. It is extremely diffucult for me to write. I seem to avoid it at all costs.
I do everything else before I write a paper. I guess I should write more, but how can I if I fear it so much?

the first passage by Swift definitely sounds like me. I must have crossed out words, inserted new ones, moved sentences and paragraphs like 100 times. It did take a long time for me to revise this paper and I had to think a lot and I did bite my nails in front of the computer all night...

As you complete your second formal writing project, it is time again to reflect on writing and your writing process. Below are four passages from writers on writing. Choose one and explain how it corresponds to your own writing process experience for Writing Project #2.

"Blot out, correct, insert, refine,
Enlarge, diminish, interline;
Be mindful, when invention fails,
To scratch your head and bite your nails."
- Jonathan Swift


In a very real sense, the writer writes in order to teach himself, to understand himself, to satisfy himself; the publishing of his ideas, though it brings gratifications, is a curious anticlimax.
--Alfred Kazin


I hate writing. I will do anything to avoid it. The only way I could write less was if I was dead. --Fran Lebowitz


Sometimes I think it sounds like I walked out of the room and left the typewriter running.
--Gene Fowler