Journal #5 (word count: 428)

To me, writing and composing now take on a new meaning. The Webster definition covers most of the technical parts of writing when it describes it as, “the activity or skill of marking coherent words on paper and composing text,” however this is just the mechanical part of writing. I consider writing and composing to encompass all of the thought process, the technicality of writing, and the consideration of presentation as well. This enables the composer to create much more feeling in their writing as well as make it more effective for their audience with exigency.

Throughout my life, I’ve been told that if it’s not 12pt, Times New Roman, and MLA formatted, It’s not A+ material. I’ve noticed that throughout this project I was very drawn to a template to create structure and guidelines for myself. It’s definitely been a struggle to break the monotonous cycle of essay and template formatting in lieu of complete creativeness however, when I did, I really enjoyed my project much more than I would’ve had I stuck to the “ENC norms.” This really re-shaped my views on writing and composing.

The terms I think of most while writing have been a lot of the terms we’ve written projects on. I’ve never noticed how much I try to take my audience into account when blogging or writing for school. Looking through some of my past papers, blogs, and posts, I’ve notices how strongly I take my audience into account. For example, If I’m writing a post on Facebook, I may tone down my liberalism for the sake of my conservative parents and older family. Exigency is taken into account less often in my general writing but very often in my blogging or even in my Facebook posts. Creativity is another term I keep in mind while writing. No one wants to read something that’s been overdone or re-written multiple times across countless authors; it’s boring and most people won’t get through more than a paragraph. Presentation comes in 4^th place. While what I write is what I want to have the greatest impact, that’s not always the case. In my eyes, presentation counts for about 30-40% of my writing. After all, will people want to read what I’ve written if it’s not interesting enough to catch their eye? Approach is just as important. Especially when posting about fitness or politics, I do my best to inspire feeling in other people by appealing to either logic, reason, feeling. This ensures that I’ll get through to my reader by some way, shape or form.