Clinton Ezenwosu
Freshman Composition.
12/08/2019.
Theory of Writing.
Why do authors write? Why do people read books? These are questions I often ask myself because I don’t know what in the world inspires someone to take a pen or a laptop and begin to type or write on a piece of paper something such as book, pamphlet, speeches that would get to the public, attract an audience and get good reviews on what was written. I always heard about good authors and their books/ novels like Jk Rowling’s Harry Porter, William Shakespare’s The Tempest and wondered what makes writing so much fun for these authors and made them realize that they could write more books and make a good fortune out of it. For me, writing has always been something I never liked but always had to do. It is something that gives me sleepless nights trying to compose an essay and put in the right information. I have struggled with writing because it involves me combining words together to form sentences, paragraphs or an essay. But as I grew older I had to learn new writings skills that helped me improve my writing better and made me realize that writing wasn’t hard but it was my reluctance and unwillingness to dedicate my time to write better. When I was in high school I remember my English teacher always telling us that writing is something that we could never escape from, and he always told us that the older we grew the more we would realize that writing has an effect on our everyday lives. He uses examples of Job interviews that require you to write a letter to your boss or requires you to write a letter to be a part of the company’s blog, composition of essays in higher levels of education, writing letter to someone such as loved ones, friends and family and writing letter to someone in a higher authority to inquire about something or to create a solution to a problem. Another example he would give that made us know how important writing was is that writing had influence on presidential speeches, debates, state of union, inaugural addresses, celebrity award acceptance speeches. I didn’t take him seriously matter of fact I don’t think anyone believed what he said because we all taught he was trying to justify the reason he gave us long essays to write such as debates on issues, connections the main idea has with the passage read and research questions on issues that arise in society such as Teenage pregnancies, marijiuna, crime rates, prostitution and gang violence. We were all forced to face reality when we all entered college. In college I realized that every single class I took in my freshman year from the lowest to the highest number of credits required me to write at least four different essays on different topics taught in class, each essay had its own percentage in the final grade for that class. After my first time writing at least one essay in each of these classes and feedbacks from my professors, I realized that I had to put more efforts into the essay I wrote in order to get higher grades and improve my style of writing.
I have done various types of writings like concert reviews this requires me to attend a concert and describe the music played ,history of the music, the quality of the music played, the venue and time, stage settings, the performer relationship with the audience, the performer’s clothing and instruments played. This was quite difficult because I was new to this kind of writing and didn’t know how to compose a well-structured essay to describe what I listed. In another class I had to write an essay on two books “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair and “The Narrative of the life of Fredrick Douglass” in these two essays I had to identify the problems in society and the transformation made in society to solve these various issues such as corruption, slavery, monopolies. Another type of writing I had to do was an inquiry and source based essay. These writings required me to research a topic in which I was interested in. I choose Climate Change because I believed this was the most important topic every human being needs to address and look into to ensure a planet safe and free from carbondioxide. These writings also required sources to expand our topic and support our claims. Some sources included newspaper articles, magazine articles, academic journals, blogs. An interview with an employee that works in an organization aligned with your research topic was required, which for me was a representative from Carbon Trackers initiatives Organization. These writings were very important to me because it didn’t only expand my knowledge on my topic but made me build the confidence to interview a representative from and organization which I never taught I would do. This answered one of my questions asked in the first paragraph, because I believe people read in order to get information or to expand their knowledge on a particular topic. These types of writing introduced me to some terms in writing these terms also helped me answer many questions I had about writing in the past. These terms include the Rhetorical situation which is the situation or a problem at hand. The rhetorical situation dictates the sort of observations to be made and must exist as a necessary condition of rhetorical diverse. The rhetorical situation attracts a group of people called the rhetorical audience who are people influenced by disclosure. Another term used was Genres which are helpful ways for effective communication between the writer and his/her audience and tools to help get things done. Genres are used in everyday life like sending of text messages, letters and help construct rhetorical actions. Stance, audience, purpose, point view, medium and background information were other terms used. The stance is the position the writer takes in a rhetorical situation like if he/she is for or against a particular issue. For example I was against the continuous use of carbon dioxide in the United States. Purpose is the reason the author is writing such as to raise attention to a particular issue and call for change or to influence a specific audience. The audiences are the group of people the writer is trying to get across his/her information to. In some cases there are specific group of people the author tries to reach out to, these people are called Target Audience. For example in my Inquiry based essay I was trying to reach out to citizens of the United States that would help limit Climate Change by the things they do like switching to greener energy, recycling, taking of public transportation and voting for Pro Climate Change lawmakers during elections. The medium is the means the writer uses to pass across the information such as the internet, magazines, newspapers. Point of view is how the writer sees a particular problem and addresses it. Knowing all these terms and also reading an article called “Why I write” by George Orwell which explains the reason why some authors and himself write answered all my questions and also made me understand various reasons why some authors write. According to George most authors write because of the desire to seem clever and remembered after death, desire to share an experience which one thinks is valuable, desire to see things as they are and desire to push the world in a certain direction. After knowing all these about writing all that was remaining was for me to learn how to organize a well-structured essay which I got help from the Writing center. After two days in the Writing center I knew how to organize an essay in sections which would interest the reader more. I learnt how to compose an essay that wouldn’t bore by reader by address the problem for example in a section and the relationship with the article and describe the solution to the problem in another section. I learnt that this was the best way to not confuse your reader while reading and an easier way for the reader to identify the problem and solution. Knowing all these I knew now how to write an organized essay, and also realized that my hatred for writing slowly faded away because of the interest I showed.
Knowing all these my writing styles improved better and this helped me answer a new question “Why I Write”. I write to pass across information to the end products of my writing, for me writing is a new way of expressing myself without the use of my mouth. My aim of writing is to make my audience more interested in the particular topic I am writing about. For instance someone that doesn’t believe in climate change can be persuaded to change his/her mind after reading an article that shows the negative effects and solution to climate change. I make the person reading feel like he/she is in my world with the way I pass across my information. With the help genres such as posters, comic strip, newspapers and mediums such as the internet and emails I believe I can pass across information to the right audience. When I write I try not to bore my audience because I believe they are the reason I write. Because of this I feel a kind of confidence when I sit down to write because I believe I can do it. I believe I can pass useful information that can influence my reader. Before I write about a topic I first of all highlight the topic, then I think about the particular audience that are related to this topic. I think about the group of people that would find the topic I am about to write about useful. I think about the topic what changes need to be done or what needs to stay the same, then if changes are to be done I research changes that would be suitable to my audience. When I write I try as much as possible to eliminate confusion in my writing by going straight to the point and organizing my points in a detailed structure. When I write I feel like I am a pilot in an airplane, any mistake can cause the airplane to crash similar to writing any mistake can make the audience loss interest in your writing.
Unlike before I believe I can write an essay that would pass my information across to my audience and make them gain lots of knowledge from the topic I am writing about. Writing is an easy process that I had to learn as time went on that just required sacrifices and dedication. I have improved a lot on my recent essays in different classes and can know say I don’t have sleepless night no more worrying about getting a low grade or failing a particular course due to my poor writing skills. To anyone reading this that’s hates write I would say “You can’t be good at what you hate” and advise you to give it a try and you would be surprised at the result if you put enough effort into it.
