Mapping The Writing Of First Year College Students

So this article starts off questioning the caliber of literacy in writing, amongst  first-year college students. They have set up a study to find just what kind of writing these young students are getting into in their first year. Just like in every other article we have read this month,they have found that kids are generally spending most of their time writing with technology. Such as: texting, instant messaging, emailing, fan fiction writing online, and general typing essay's and papers for classes. Once again, just like every other article we have read, manly kids are only writing in these ways, and doing these surveys are shedding light on the contemporary values in the way teens are writing nowadays. It also shed light on just how important our "hand held" devices are to us. We honestly could not survive without them, and even I feel completely lost when I have forgotten my phone at home that day. This is really sad, but it is really true. They have found all of these things through a survey given to students enrolled in their first year of college, in their first year writing class. The survey asked quite a bit of demographic questions, and of course, questions about writing. They were then asked to rank their top five writing types that they do most often. Then they were asked which writing types they valued the most. As you probably already guessed,after they averaged out everyone's results, the number one writing type was texting, followed by e-mail at number two, and lecture notes at number three. What I did not mention was that even though the technology writing was at the very top, academic writing was still in the top five as most used and valued. I think this caught the researchers a little off guard, but I think it is something their little hearts should just swell over. I mean, I understand it being one of the most commonly used, I mean come on, I am academically writing right now, but I was kind of shocked at it being so high on the most valued list. And this was basically the gist of the entire article.

Writing and Technology

So this article starts off talking about how kids write an absolute ton through our teenage years. We write all through school, we write through social media, emails, texting, online messaging, and some even write fan fiction for fun. Writing for fun is kind of odd to me seeing I can barely get through this, but that is not the point. Then the article goes on to talk about the debate on if e-communication is damaging the way kids write or if it is inspiring kids to write more. So they hopped on the phone and start taking surveys on the subject from teens and their parents. It turns out that most all the teens from the survey agreed that forms of e-communication is purely communication. They seem to be considering this form of "writing" not even writing at all. They all seem to say there is a defining line between writing for personal reasons( such as texting, tweeting, emailing, etc..) and formal writing for school and school assignments. They also found that most teens do not believe that they incorporate all of their "social" writing habits but sometimes things slip through the cracks. Then the kids started fessing up that they know formal writing, where they may not enjoy it, will be essential in there future, higher education careers. Now the parents are starting to put their two cents into things. Parents are confessing that they write way more now in their everyday lives, then they ever did when they were teens. And the parents are also saying that their own kids are writing more now, in their teenage years, than the parents themselves ever wrote, during their teen years. Kind of interesting, huh? The government..pfsh. I also found it interesting that the study showed, the importance of writing is more valued in the household of African Americans and families of low income. it was also intriguing to know that teenagers, in their college preparatory English classes, believe that the instruction they are given about proper writing techniques is out dated and has room to improve. There's no clear winner in this debate, but we all have our own opinions.

Baron & Cullington

Baron- pg. 719
            Baron starts out with questioning, how instant messaging and text messaging may be degrading or diminishing our literacy and language. She questions if CMC is actually expanding our language and knowledge, or is it only hurting it. She goes on to explain that, while text messaging and Instant messaging is the new phenomenon in the United States, instant messaging and text messaging have already been a big deal in places like, Europe and Seoul. Then she goes through the history of how language was once always a spoken past time, and never published or sent to a friend in the matter of minutes via an aluminum box. She also goes on to talk about how at the beginning of the text messaging era, kids(most teenagers) were big into abbreviated text. Typical. Even now a days, we are still using some abbreviation like "lol" and "brb", but it is no where to the extent that it used to be. She finishes by saying that, while this modern tool for language can be a good thing, we need to not lose sight of our common knowledge education. Use this modern technology to expand our education and not weaken it.
Cullington- pg. 774
             Cullington starts off by talking about, none other, than the world of text messaging. whoo.hoo. He then starts talking about an article addressing  teens and their texting. The article seems to believe that texting is and, if not now, will downgrade a teens ability to become a proficient writer.And it is holding back our ability to be productive social beings. The article is now blaming texting for making people lazy. Is it not more convenient than lazy? The article is also talking about how abbreviated texting has become second nature to teens amongst their everyday spoken language. That sometimes we do not even catch that we are even doing it. Apparently, we are also avoiding proper punctuation and therefore we are not creating a muscle memory for it, and in the future, it will be harder for us to learn. He finishes the article by saying that texting could be a positive or negative tool for teens and their modern language. They will keep experimenting whether or not if it actually has an influence, but seems they will keep coming up with the same answer. We will never really know the truth.

D. Baron

         Baron starts out this article talking about how much technology we have , and how much we dis-value it. Especially when it comes to writing. He criticizes people for criticizing the new technology we use for writing. He finds that  some of the stuff we are using is incredible. And he is right! This article was published in 1999, so just imagine the even further advances we have made in technology, that can also be used for writing, that Baron did not even know about.
         He starts going through the history, or should I say, "evolution" of writing. He starts by going through the history of actual, physical writing. Like ink to bark. Pencil to paper. Pen to parchment. Whatever floats your boat. Then it goes to type writers. All of those endless hours of clicking, and one mistake and you are completely screwed. Convenient, yet not so convenient. Does that make sense? Then we move to computers. I can imagine that computers back in 1999 is not like what we are typing on today. Fundamentally? Yes. Quickness and ability to print, email, and edit with ease? Not so much. So skip a few steps and we are at today's computers. Yay!
         Now he is talking about how even back in the golden days of epic literature, people thought writers were weirdo's back then too. Now, I am not saying they are weirdo's now-a-days but society seems to label people who write for fun, kind of odd. And after taking this writing class, I would have to agree. Then he moves on to how we are establishing writing. We are not just at nut cases, writing screen plays, about two fourteen year old's, falling in love, and them killing themselves after only like, 2 days of knowing each other. We are at full fledged articles, journals, interviews, research papers, novels, screenplays, informational books, etc. I could go on forever, and I think that is the point that Baron is trying to get across. We may be crossing roads with new technologies and new way to do things, but writing , no matter how it is done, will be a forever thing.

Comparing Writing Processes

My writing process is way different from my partners. At first I thought I had no real process and it was pretty simple, but then I read John's process. Oh my lord. I have the world's best writing process compared to his, and that's sad. He doesn't have a process at all for that matter, so that should say something. At least I can brainstorm. And I even have an outline for gods sake. I even read! I love to read, I get so much inspiration for my writing ,from my reading. He also writes when he's lying down. Who does that?? And more importantly, how does he do that?? I have to sit at the table and have plenty of room. I also can't watch TV like he does and write. I get too distracted and can't concentrate. I mean, I don't like writing. I actually hate it. But I also know that, when you write, you have to have some sort of process for everything to run smoothly. He has nothing. Absolutely nothing. Yet he still makes A's on his papers? whaaa? That's just so ridiculous and unfair to me, that's it's not even funny. Like, that's not even normal? Rant over.  Anyways, our processes are very different from each others, and that's ok, because some things work for some writers that don't work for others.

Murray-2

1.) Murray's writing process seems very prolonged and time consuming. He records endless amounts if his "out loud" thoughts and aloud editing. He makes notes out loud on what he needs to do. Then he wrote really lofty drafts and made his critically acclaimed wife read over and edit them for him. In summary, his process is very long long and extended. My process is not so long and lofty. I don't do the "critical" things that he does, I very much stick to my outline. I like to keep my process short and sweet, even though it doesn't really turn out that way. The only thing we might do the same is have a significant other reread our work. I do this a lot.

3.) He found that "the writers" protocols shed new light on the great and small decisions and revisions that form planning. And that the decisions and revisions form an elaborate network of steps. He also learned that even with all of the decisions an revisions,  every writer has their own quirks and "ways" they do the things they do. I think he realized that every writer is different , so planning and revising can be difficult and different , based on who you are as a writer. But it can be done well, and efficiently or timely, depending on what you work or deal with best.

4.) ~He noted that problems arose from how the writers' particular work habits affected the gathering of data. ~When a writer is breaking ground conceptually, his pace slows. ~When in an unfamiliar, strange place, writers find it difficult to come up with good ideas and express them a good way. He's taking a "fresh" new approach and this is allowing him to solve these problems better, and more efficiently. Of course weaknesses will remain. No will ever be a perfect writer, editor, reviser, planner, etc. Except for maybe Shakespeare. Maybe.I feel like, having weaknesses are a good thing. How are we ever going to learn and expand, if we have nothing to learn from? And no one likes a know-it-all. There's just no way to be perfect.  

My Writing Process

I don't think I have a very specific writing process, but then again, when I think about it, maybe I am kind of picky. I generally have to be in a very comfortable, quiet, environment. So that includes either my bedroom, the back patio, or the library. I can't have distractions like TV or my phone, so I will usually turn on like classical music and keep it on low volume. Then I start my research. If I don't have any idea what to do for a topic, I will usually go skim over Yahoo! news, and that usually gives me an idea. Then I do my "in depth" research. I will use "Mel.org" for most of my resources. It's a database with articles, journals, magazines, newspapers, books, etc. You name it. They are very reliable sources. So then I start my outline. I start my outline kind of weird. I will always write my introduction to start my outline. From there I can form main points to form my body paragraphs. Then once I create my main points, mainly in bullet point form, I will write my conclusion. From this I can form my body paragraphs, which now I have a rough draft. This is where I modify my intro and conclusion to fit my body paragraphs correctly. Then I look it over and over and over, to make sure I didn't miss anything, and then I generally make someone else, credible, look over it. Once I get their feedback, I look over it a couple more times. Then I will go to a website like "knightcite" and put in all of my sources so that all my citing is done correctly. I then make my cite page. You know how the drill goes. "Alphabetical order, any lines under the first are tabbed, blah blah blah." Once I make sure the citing is done right, I will usually reread my writing again. I get very paranoid when writing. I hate being grammatically incorrect. It physically bothers me. Plus I don't think I am a very good writer. Anyways, by now I can probably print and staple, and get everything ready to turn in. And that's a ginger writing process.