~ryanlowe/blog: Post^H^H^H^H Essay Writing

Post^H^H^H^H Essay Writing

I was never much of a writer, I don't care what you guys say. Sure I know spelling and grammar but that's just memorization. Not very hard, if you ask me (and I know some of you would disagree) ;). I still comma splice all the freakin time ... I have to watch it. And I just dot dot dot whenever I can't think up the right punctuation. It comes from having a conversational style of writing and trying to get that down in written form. Like chatting on an instant messenger or IRC ... sometimes it just doesn't fit right.

Anyway, now I have these big honkin blog posts to deal with. I try not to ramble and make a coherent point but it's hard when the posts get long. So I've been trying a few different things to organize myself.

The first is writing out point form what I want to cover. I try to identify a key point. Then I expand those points into sentences as quickly as I can ... I go with the writing flow, without blocking myself -- a kind of freestyle writing I guess. Then I go back and edit the sentences filling in the gaps to give the post some legs to stand on, fix spelling mistakes (I don't use a spell checker) and so on.

Then I publish it. The funny thing is even though Movable Type has a preview feature I'm still not happy with the post until I see it published. Then I find more mistakes, fix them, and republish. Often I'll republish half a dozen times or more but as soon as someone quotes the post I stop editing it.

That's my approach, given I haven't had to write an essay since my last year of high school. How do you write essays or long posts?

HA! Ironically this one was done completely off the top of my head .... still got it ;)

Posted at April 26, 2004 at 06:20 AM EST
Last updated April 26, 2004 at 06:20 AM EST

Comments

If I'm going to do a longer post, I'll usually sketch it out beforehand on the whiteboard or a piece of scratch paper (or notepad).

Depending on how the content, sometimes I'll break stuff up and spread it out over a few days.. (although that could be a problem for you Ryan, since you blog alot more actively than I do..).

But yeah, I know what you mean about not being happy until you can see it in its published form. At least on my end I have the excuse that my publishing interface (http://forum.ed209.org/index.php?showtopic=494) looks completely different than my finished product (http://www.ed209.org).

» Posted by: peter at April 26, 2004 07:08 PM

I am a reasonably good speller and have reasonably good grammar. In fact, i think that they are both great for a SEG. I also take PHI courses on the side and have written quite a few essays over the years. I seem to have a knack for it too and average probably an A- on the essays that i have written. The thing is that i never write point form, jots, or even drafts. Usually, once i have a topic, i just sit there for a while thinking about the topic. Then, when i think that i have something that makes sense, i start writing - from beginning to end - non-stop. Sometimes i wait and do the abstract/introduction and conclusion until the end, because they are supposed to follow that upside-down triangle, triangle format, which is harder to plan out, but that's about it. Then, i proofread for split infinitives, etc. and hand it in. In the term that just passed, i wrote an entire 10-page PHI essay in one afternoon - start to finish - and handed it in the next day. It's kind of like art. For instance a painter often doesn't need to plan everything out; he just starts with an idea and improvises as he goes. I seem to come up with more creative essays this way, and creative essays are more interesting to read.

That's what works for me, anyway. Best of luck with whichever method works best for you.

» Posted by: Scott at April 29, 2004 12:40 PM