Concepts about the Writing Process - Article Example

There was very little in the way of reflection in this process, as the steps were fairly regimented. This course has opened my eyes to the power of reflective thought in writing, which has made such types of writing as description and expository writing more enjoyable for me.

The best paper I wrote for this course, in my opinion, is the one about smartphones. This is a topic that will continue to build interest, as more and more apps become available and people spend more and more time with their heads bent over these small devices. When I wrote my earliest draft of this piece, I did not include enough in the area of detail to make my own points vibrant enough for the reader. As a result, the ideas that made a lot of sense to me did not come through adequately for my peers who reviewed the paper for me. So when I revised the paper, I needed to go back in and help the reader view the topic from the perspective from which I was viewing it. This did not mean that the reader had to agree with my opinion, necessarily; rather, it meant that I needed to be able to make my perspective understandable.

If I continued to have more time on that paper, I would have done some more research on smartphone usage statistics. I have been floored by the number of people I see using these devices in ways that just make no sense to me. I don’t know why people would sit and text while they are driving, and I certainly don’t know why someone would sit and Facebook their way through what is supposed to be a romantic evening out, or even through a family meal.
My ongoing weakness is an assumption that the reader can see things the way I see them, or that I don’t have to communicate my own viewpoint thoroughly enough for the reader to be able to understand it. 

This means that I leave out details that seem obvious to me, for the simple reason that I think the reader should be able to “see” a point that is clear to me. This means that my points end up being confusing, at times, to the reader.

 To help with the editing of my smartphone paper, I had several of my peers read through the rough draft. Their purpose was not so much to point out misspellings or other issues but instead to talk about what they would do differently from a more global perspective.  Read More