College Writing Experience
I am not a Saturday night blogger, but perhaps I should be. As it is now, my weekend activities have sent me backsliding into the Pit of Blog Slackery, two whole entries behind the rest of the group. I will claw my way out.
My college writing experience is probably typical of other tutors' in that my ACT scores were high enough to excuse me from English 1010. So that's out. I took English 2010 through the honors department at USU, which meant the professor could choose just about any curriculum he wanted. As a sort of special torture for the smart kids, he decided on technical writing. It's possible that I learned a lot from that class, but I took very little of the information with me at the semester's end. I was not yet ready to accept technical writing as my main squeeze, so I wrote the course off as a necessary evil.
Besides this brief experience with memo composition, I didn't begin taking writing-intensive classes until my second semester at Weber State. Being a bright and shiny beginner, I found it sensible to dive into Advanced College Writing with Dr. Crimmel. I picked up writing tips here and there, but learned the most from the comments written on my completed drafts. One that still stands out in my mind was scrawled on a personal narrative: "Every word earns its keep." Before reading this, I had never thought my writing as an active, working thing that needed to offer something to the reader. The same idea was brought to my attention by Dr. Shigley when she asked the class, as writers, "So what?" If a writer can't make a subject important, why should anyone read it? (I could go into a Bartholomae tangent here, but will save it for another time.) As I moved more in the direction of technical writing, this question became an even greater influence on my writing. The reader is the primary concern of a technical document. All the creative ability in the world means nothing if readers can't find exact meaning in your words.
Even though I am three credits away from graduation, I sometimes feel like I am a beginner. This is especially true when moving around between academic writing, technical documentation, and blogging. My writing style can apply to texts with different levels of formality, but it takes conscious effort.
My college writing experience is probably typical of other tutors' in that my ACT scores were high enough to excuse me from English 1010. So that's out. I took English 2010 through the honors department at USU, which meant the professor could choose just about any curriculum he wanted. As a sort of special torture for the smart kids, he decided on technical writing. It's possible that I learned a lot from that class, but I took very little of the information with me at the semester's end. I was not yet ready to accept technical writing as my main squeeze, so I wrote the course off as a necessary evil.
Besides this brief experience with memo composition, I didn't begin taking writing-intensive classes until my second semester at Weber State. Being a bright and shiny beginner, I found it sensible to dive into Advanced College Writing with Dr. Crimmel. I picked up writing tips here and there, but learned the most from the comments written on my completed drafts. One that still stands out in my mind was scrawled on a personal narrative: "Every word earns its keep." Before reading this, I had never thought my writing as an active, working thing that needed to offer something to the reader. The same idea was brought to my attention by Dr. Shigley when she asked the class, as writers, "So what?" If a writer can't make a subject important, why should anyone read it? (I could go into a Bartholomae tangent here, but will save it for another time.) As I moved more in the direction of technical writing, this question became an even greater influence on my writing. The reader is the primary concern of a technical document. All the creative ability in the world means nothing if readers can't find exact meaning in your words.
Even though I am three credits away from graduation, I sometimes feel like I am a beginner. This is especially true when moving around between academic writing, technical documentation, and blogging. My writing style can apply to texts with different levels of formality, but it takes conscious effort.
posted by Anonymous at 11:13 AM
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