Winnie: When I write I try to get down some headings that seem to relate to the question. At least they give me an idea of what topics and divisions my writing will have. But I am not yet sure exactly if I have an argument. I start to write what I can under these headings and as I go I am trying to find a way of making these fit together. When I have got my first draft like this I will go back and put in bits that will show the links between the different parts. I may have to move around some material. Sometimes I have to cut out quite a lot because now that I am much clearer about my argument, I realize that not everything I thought was interesting is actually relevant or important. I still have to work out what exactly I have to leave out, add, or move around but gradually I fit the bits together.
Rosemary: I spend a great deal of time reading and making notes – I try to absorb it all thoroughly. I have to read much more than I need. Then I think about it a lot. I can think as I’m doing other things. Finally, I just sit down and write it out in longhand and it’s as though it has all come together in my inner mind. Sometimes I add an introduction once I have finished and I will read the whole assignment through, but really I have never found I could write down a plan and my work hardly ever needs redrafting.
Deborah: First I wrote down some notes – ideas for headings. I used the space of a whole page so that I could space out my ideas in a diagram-like fashion. Sometimes I had a column on one side to note down ideas that I might use later on or for jobs I would need to do before I could begin writing the assignment. I kept this list to one side so that I could add to it as I was trying to develop my central overarching idea on the main part of the page. When I had finished I had some notes which all related to this ‘central idea’ so that I had an outline for the whole piece. Sometimes I like to use visual diagrams for my planning. I think and plan before I even begin to think about starting to write.
The diver writer
Tawachai just plunges in to her work. She always finds that she has to do some writing before she knows what she wants to say and in order to find out. She might use practice writing for this purpose. Only then can she begin to build up a plan. If she were the child building her house with bricks she would get started and see what kind of building emerged from how she moved around the bricks. She would start to ‘just build’ her house.
The patchwork writer
Winnie writes sections at an early stage, which she then has to fit together to make the whole assignment, adding links as she goes. If she were the child building a house of bricks she might make a series of different ‘rooms’ which she would then need to join together to make up the whole house.
The grand plan writer
Rosemary is a writer who doesn’t seem to make an outline at all: she has a ‘grand plan’ in her ‘inner mind’. In fact, she must have a structure in her mind before she begins to write but she can’t quite say what it is until she writes it down. Then it comes out nearly complete. The child builder with a grand plan would have a clear picture in her mind of the house she was going to build before she began and would build quickly without getting diverted.
The architect writer
Deborah has a sense of design in her writing. She would not find it too difficult to produce a complex plan. Writers who find it easy to put their thoughts in the form of a spider diagram or mind map are this kind of writer. They have a sense of a broad structure almost before they know what content will go into it, whereas other writers have to know what they have to say before they can make a plan. The ‘architect’ child building a brick house might start with an outer structure for her building, which she would then fill in to make all her rooms.
Things to think about
- What do you think might be the advantages and disadvantages of these different ways of organizing writing?
- Which way of planning and shaping is most like your own approach?
- How do you think your way may be different from any of these?
Taken from “Writing at University: A Guide for Students” by Phyllis Creme and Mary R. Lea. Open University Press (2008)
I think I'm more like Rosemary than any others. As a Grand Plan Writer, I too like to have the structure of my writing in my inner-mind. Usually, I get ideas for my writing when I'm doing something else, like reading book, showering, watching movies, or even when I'm in a class. In the past, I tend to have a notebook to write the ideas of my writing, just to know which ideas is going to be my main event in the writing. But now, the ideas just pop up and stayed inside of my head and I can easily pour it into writing. The disadvantage is that sometimes I write too much that it become confusing and have strayed away from my main idea. The main difference between me and Rosemary is that most of the time I need to recheck and redraft my writing if I find something that doesn't fit with the writing itself whilst Rosemary seldomly needs to.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, the diver writer method takes the longest time to finish. What’s more, the whole outlook of the writing might become unorganized. But on the other hand it is advantageous if you are to write long essays as you could add sentences through time. The patchwork method is interesting. It allows you to add up ideas whenever something pops up in your head, but the problem emerges when you’re about to combine all of them because you have to bridge every ideas and that’s quite a challenge. The grand plan writer is, I must say, the luckiest writer out of all. They are the ones with the clearest picture in their head, and as their hands do the magic, their ideas just flow as their fingers write down and interpret what’s going on in their head. I think this kind of writer is very rare. It’s probably possible to write like this when someone is used to write things for a long time and have reached a certain level. The last method, the architect writer, is the most structured and organized method. It’s the one that’s been told the most to every writer; the basic of all types of writing.
ReplyDeleteMy approach is various; it depends on the type of writing I want to make. If I want to write a short story, perhaps, it’s best to use the diver writer method. Never had I made outline to make fictional writing. For me writing fictional stories is an impulsive act as I don’t want to limit the ideas themselves. I let my mind wanders and explores, and suddenly it’s already reaching its end. As for essays, I usually use the architect method or patchwork.
I don’t think my way has any differences either. The four methods that have been explained above simply sums up all the methods I’ve tried before.
After reading the whole article, I think I am more like Rosemary as a writer. There is one thing I surely know is common between Rosemary and I; we do not make outline at all. I only structure my writings in my head and I go straight to writing it. After I poured all of my ideas into the writing, I read it from the beginning to the end to eliminate things I wrote that actually is not necessary. From the rereading process, I have never find that my writing needs to be redrafted from the beginning. I usually only find minor mistakes and maybe some sentences that do not have coherence and cohesion so I correct the sentences. In the other hand, the article stated that Rosemary makes notes and reads much more than she actually needs, I do not do that. I do not take notes and I only read things that I think is crucial for me to understand in order to write a nice paragraph about it.
ReplyDeleteThere are of course a various type of writers out there and they all have their own disadvantages and advantages. Of course making a planned out essay is great because you can just stick to the plan but sometimes what you write and the plan you made do not match. I consider myself to be a grand plan writer. I never make an outline when working on essays. I tend to just type them out and see how the flow would work and make it into a nice little essay. However, I do sometimes get an idea for, let’s say, paragraph 2 while I am working on paragraph 1. When that happens, I tend to write my essay so that it can lead to the idea I have for paragraph 2. Unlike the grand plan writer, my essays don't necessarily come out nearly complete. Sometimes I would still get opinions on it and see where I kind of rambled on about nonsense and just get objective reviews on it to make sure it is a good essay.
ReplyDeleteFrom those different ways of organizing writing, I think the grand plan writer suits my style of writing. After reading an article or a question, I tend to think and analyze the topic given and make an outline in my mind. Then I start to pour my idea or answer into a writing. Usually, I describe the idea in details within a single paragraph. This type of writer has advantages and disadvantages. In my personal experience, I tend to forget the proper structure on writing an essay. Hence, the essay become disorganized. I also missed several points because I only made the outline in my mind. While one of the advantages is that it is much faster. As we do not bother to write an outline and we spontaneously expressed our thoughts into our writings. In a nutshell, each type of writer has their own advantages and disadvantages. It depends on a person preference and perspective on seeing the styles of writing.
ReplyDeleteExpressing my ideas through words has been one of my hobby for a couple of years. I used to write travel reports and recommendation on a blog and try to draw the panorama that I saw using powerful words. I also enjoyed reading at my own blogs and visualizing what I’ve wrote. Even though I like to write, I’m not saying that I’m a good writer because I realize that sometimes I made grammatical mistakes or misspelled words in sentences. I’m confused of which type of writer I am. When I read about tawachai, I thought that the explained information suits me well. But then, I read about deborah, and I had the same thoughts like the one I had on tawachai. I think that I am a double-agent. I can be deborah, but I can also be tawachai. I think that the context and the purpose of the texts that I have to make influence my personality as a writer.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the passage above, I came up with a conclusion that I am combination of The Diver Writer and The Grand Plan Writer. When writing about the subject that I am familiar with, I tend to lean more to The Diver Writer. This is because I already have information related to the topic in my mind and those information is stored as a puzzle. Within this context, my method of thinking become rather abstract as I try to organize the puzzles together in my writing. On the other hand, when I am not familiar with the subject, I tend to be The Grand Plan Writer. I enjoy to read as much as I can to absorb vast amount of information before writing. After reading, I like to take notes to remember the material and to make sure that my writing is organized.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of the strengths and limitation of different writing types, I will say that The Architect Writer is the best fit for academic writing. The architect writing style, tend to produce an organized writing that is preferred in academic writing. The downside however, not everyone is used to thinking in an organized, chronological way. This writing type is also considerably the most time consuming compared to other writing types.
I considered my self to be the combination of both Rosemary and Winnie. First of all, for me the most important thing in writing is the early stage. For some reason in my opinion introduction has always been the hardest part of writing. Because in my mindset the stage of introduction will reflect the whole content of the the writing, therefore i like to write it very carefully. After i finished the intro, things started to get much easier, and it is where the rosemary style of writing take part. By utilising what i’ve wrote in the intro, i begin to imagine and pictured the whole scenario of my writing. And usually after i finished each paragraph i like to reread the sentences to make sure that i has a good flow and doesn’t have and spelling or grammar error. Then after i finished the whole writing i begin reread the whole paragraph to ensure that everything is according to my planned scenario and that there is no additional information needed to add.
ReplyDeleteI would consider myself as a grand plan writer because, I rarely plan on what to write, I just start writing and go along with it, because as I write I continue to gather ideas and somehow I just keep going to the point where I do not even pay attention to how much I write. Most of the times it is very hard to start writing for me but when I do start writing, the chance of me stopping is very small. Everyone has their own style of writing, I guess it depends on what to write or if there are specific instructions. On essays like this I just write what I have in my head, I do not use notes or bulletpoints. At school, teachers teach us how to write properly, by properly I mean using the correct structure for example using headline, introduction, body paragraph and conclusion. Structured writing does help a lot, and I always keep that in mind when writing. To conclude, there are no advantages or disadvantages in any of the writing style, it all comes down to preference, at the end of the day writing is writing.
ReplyDeleteI think I’m included as the patchwork writer since I often planned or outline the subtopics that I want to write. It gives me the idea of what to write later, which eventually eases me to write it on paragraphs. I am the type of person of writer who easily forgets about my idea that just came up. For example, If I was writing for the first paragraph, then suddenly found a valuable argument that can be written in the second paragraph, I should jot it down at any parts of the paper using pencil for instance. If I'm not bothered by it and continue to explain in the first paragraph, I will totally forget about the idea for the second paragraph, and therefore have to come up with another idea. Jotting down the plan may be taking a little more of your time, but it helps you to recall what you’re going to write, which is easier for me.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the article section above, I would consider myself as a mix of the diver and the grand plan writer. It actually depends on the situation. If I were about to write a paper regarding a topic that I’m familiar with, I would just dive into my writing and figuring the rest as I go further. This is because I already have the information in my mind and all I have to do is pour that information out into my writing. On the contrary, when I was about to write an essay regarding a topic that I have no idea about for example politics, I have to take notes about the topic and search enough information to be able to write a university level essay. Although everyone has a different approach in writing I believe that the architect writer is the most convenience when writing an essay because the writer will have a clear structure of the content of the essay itself. I also recommend everyone to re-read your tasks before submitting because it really helps with correcting typos and grammar mistakes.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the article above, I came to a realization that I consider myself as a mix of both the patchwork writer and the architect writer. I usually prefer to gather different ideas, and write a short paragraph of those ideas that later I will eventually put it all together. For me, it is more convenient that way because I can explore and develop every single idea that I have for this particular topic and later one I can choose which one is actually needed to put into my writing. Sometime, I have a structure on my mind and I know what to write later on and just go with the flow. Then again, these various type of writer has it own advantage and disadvantages. Being a patchwork writer has it own advantage as I said before it allows you to explore and develop your ideas, in the other hand it may lead to too many ideas that you can't focus on any specific area that you would like to talk about. The diver writing, it helps you to build a 'perfect' essay. By practice your writing and change your vocabulary or checking if there any errors, for sure it helps you make a 'perfect' essay. Meanwhile, don't you think it is a bit of a process? it takes longer time and also needs patience and passion. Other than that, the grand plan writer have a huge advantage. Your essay will be well structured and you can express your point well explained, but then for me it takes too much of my time and the process is too long sam goes as the diver writer as I mention above.
ReplyDeleteMy style of writing resembles Winnie the most. When I find a topic I really like, one that really piques my interest, my head starts buzzing with all the points and words that I want to deliver. Because of that, I find it much easier to write everything that I want to say unstructured. When I’m finished, I am left with a first, albeit very messy, rough draft as well as a clearer goal of what I want to write about. The perks of being a patchwork writer is that I can produce my first draft out fairly quick and I’m able to write about a variety of arguments and points. However, this means that I take a fairly long time editing and rearranging them, as I constantly have to revise my essay over and over to make sure the text flows well along each other. Some may find this act tedious and unbearable to do, but I find that it fits me the most because I much prefer having lots of ideas to work with and expand my creativity and find a diamond in the rough in it, rather than spending too much time to outline and limit myself.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the article thoroughly, I would consider myself as a diver writer. Because my approach to writing is less of planning but more of thought when in the process of writing. As I write one sentence or thought, I already know what I am about to write down next. It may seem as a very lacklustre strategy but it is what works for me. This approach from my experience has the amount of pressure to push needed to make you write but not in the sense that it would make you stressed. Of course every type of writer has their own pros and cons. And I think that what kind of writer you are depends on what suits your personality and skills the best. My way of writing may have the most difference as it needs the skill to be spontaneous. This requirement is not needed in other ways of writing as it requires a lot of pre-planning.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, before reading this article, I never knew that there is so many kinds of way of writing. I realized that what my friends told me about how they wrote their works or essays are all the correct way of writing, just different. Personally I am a rosemary kind of writer but if I failed to get any arguments I usually change to being a Winnie kind of writer, so what i mean by that is I spend a lot of time reading and analyzing, and once I understand the topic, I tried to arrange it in my mind and at the end of the day I wrote it down. But sometime my mind just won’t have the arguments, so I used the Winnie kind of writing where i tried to write down the headings that seemed to relate to the question. In this process I usually add and drop a lot of arguments, making me specify on which is more related to the big picture that I had, and after the add and drop process i tried to fit them together.
ReplyDeleteI don’t consider myself as a good writer, because it’s hard for me to construct sentences that would appeal to readers. Even until now, I’m still looking for the right method for me to effectively write a long essay. Among all the method mentioned in the article, I seem to be a mixture of the diver writer and the grand plan writer. Sometimes I find it easier to just jump right in to write the essay, and some other times it would be better if I have a vision of what I am going to write.
ReplyDeleteI think it’s best to have an outline of what you’re going to write and expand it from there. Which is similar to how Rosemary would write her essay. As a result of this method, you would have a more structured essay. It’s easier as well to develop it into a full-bodied essay, because you have a clear outline and key points that you will cover in your essay.
I won’t be pointing out all the advantages and disadvantages of every single type of writers, but I will give only one advantage and one disadvantage from two of those types. For the advantage, it’s going to be coming from the diver writer. Despite what other people say about it being disorganised and often contains irrelevant points or contents that are not asked in the instructions, from what I’ve observed from my friends who are like Tawachai, at least they get to write something. No matter how unpleasant the writing may turn out to the eyes of the readers, they will at least find one or more points that satisfies the marking scheme. As for the disadvantage, it will be coming from the grand plan writer. Although this disadvantage doesn’t apply to everyone like Rosemary, grand plan writers sometimes end up wasting too much time thinking on how his/her writing should turn out on the paper and then left with very little time to write the grand plan of his/her. In the end, the score that he/she received for his/her writing wasn’t as high as what he/she had expected, as he/she had to make compromises during the last minutes of writing his/her grand plan. Therefore, it depends on the speed of thinking of the writer. Next, I like to think of myself as a grand plan writer as what Rosemary has explained about her way of writing really fits with how I write. I always start by conjuring up different sentences in my mind and try to compile them in a way that would produce a flow comprehensible enough for the readers to follow. And, once I had finished thinking and writing my grand plan, I would read my writing out loud. That obviously doesn’t happen during exams. The reason why I would read my writing out loud is because I got to hear how my writing would sound like. This is also the part where I look for grammatical errors that might exist in my writing.
ReplyDeleteMr. Coen, I would like to thank you very much for providing this article and a platform for me to express my thoughts clearly, since this is a topic that I've always been interested in. First of all, writing is a very important subject issue that matters a lot to the young generation of society. Obtaining and honing the skill & ability to write creatively can be formulated to other aspects of soft skills, such as public speaking, debating, and many more. I myself feel that this ability is important and beneficial, due to the fact that I've experienced it. Since I've started to write regularly, the ability for the mind and oral cavity started to synchronize well, and my knowledge of vocabulary and grammar-uses also improve drastically.There are many values to creative writing, a lot where you won't feel and realized until quite some time. Activities that supports this skill should be maintained and increased, to help individuals thrive in the coming days.
ReplyDeleteWho says writing is only for writers? You might think, "I'm not a writer so I don't need to write, especially every day." It turned out to be a wrong opinion, writing had a positive impact if done regularly. Either this is just my feeling or it really happens, the writing trend is now really on the rise. Well it can't be compared to agate trends, but according to my observations, the writing trend now has begun to penetrate various circles. Now writing activities are not only done by writers or historians, anyone can now write and become a writer. Believe it, if there are many positive things that can be obtained from writing activities? So it turns out that writing doesn't just cross paper or word pages with a set of letters. Writing has more philosophy than that. Writing is recording something, documenting something in writing. Writing is like pouring your heart or thought into a real media that can be read, in this case is a writing.
DeleteWriting can be a healthy way to express feelings. Sometimes someone is too shy to talk about his or her feelings, now through writing someone can spill his heart and mind. This writing activity can be a form of self-expression that reduces depression. Sometimes after writing, someone's burden will feel much lighter. When someone writes down all the problems or problems in a writing, it will usually feel a sense of discomfort and relief. So writing can be self therapy when someone is lacking confidence in themselves, or when the person is in trouble. So basically writing could be a facilitate self-therapy. Writing habits can be a step in managing emotions while stimulating intellectual abilities. Some people even have the habit of writing as a way to get social support, especially if the author is in the stage of healing certain diseases.
DeleteBy writing, one can think more positively and avoid negative thoughts. Not only that, writing activities help solve problems faster, while learning how to control problems better.
Writing is also a way to perpetuate a person's knowledge, ideas, or ideas. We can see now how everyone uses Google to find information sources. Imagine if no one wants to write down these various forms of knowledge and information, Google will go bankrupt and humans will be even more backward. Writing can be a means for someone to share their knowledge. With the hope of knowledge can be absorbed by many people so that humans can continue to grow. By sharing knowledge, it does not mean that our knowledge will decrease, even our knowledge will increase.
DeleteA person's personality can be assessed from his ideas or ideas. Writing can be a means of building personal branding. We can write all kinds of things that become our anxiety so that we are known as the embodiment of our writing. We will be known as funny people when we are able to write funny things. We can be known as politically literate, when we write our worries about government policy. And there are many more forms of personal branding that we want to form.
Continuing from my previous comment, someone will see ideas and ideas that we write, as a form of assessment. Now when we are able to actualize ourselves in our writing, we will be known as the person we want to form. That's where we will be known to people as we want. When our personal branding has been formed, we can bring this to business needs or other things.
DeleteContinuing about the personal branding above, besides being able to be brought to business needs (sales), this can also be brought to direct people. By writing an idea or idea, we can invite people to believe in something, and these people will be moved to do the same movement we do. For example, Pandji Pragiwaksono wrote about his views on piracy and how he handled it. Now the people who read this paper will be brought in a form of mindset that respects the work, so it can reduce piracy a bit.
Now to describe myself as a writer, I do not master one of the three techniques above. I try to incorporate myself into this three techniques, although it is bad since I can't master and dive deep into one.
DeleteI've always want to be a scriptwriter. It has been my passion for years. I cannot write a script anytime I want to, aspiration and inspiration need to hit me first, this tend to happen when I'm daydreaming or observing surrounding environments. After in awe, I make a brief premise and outline to act as a basis of the synopsis and storyline. The extension of the project is just done by diving deep and let the mind and fingers flow into synchronization.
That is just my way of doing things (specifically writing)
Actually there are still many benefits of writing. This is only a small part. But the point is that writing is an activity that is really recommended to do. There will be many things that can be used in writing activities. For those of you who might not have thought about writing, you can try to start writing. For those who want to add another positive impact from writing can share in the comments column
Keep Writing, Keep Inspiring