When most people think of writing we imagine the freedom to express your ideas, and share your opinions with the world. I once believed that notion as well, but my mind has changed in recent times. In the field of study all those beliefs are destroyed and you are confined in a bubble. And dont even think about freeing yourself as it might affect your grade as a student, because papers must follow a strict guideline. Research papers in particular are extremely taxing, and lack creative freedom in all respects of the ideal. When doing a research paper you are required to use someone elses words to express your thoughts about a topic. I find that unnerving and ridiculous to be honest. Why would someone educated and capable of expressing personal opinion want to borrow words from another writer? What makes their opinion more qualified than my own? Academic research is nothing more than copy and paste without any power to follow my own path in regards to writing. If writing were as free as many believed then why must we search for academic scholars that agree with our ideas to confirm whether they are correct or not? How are we expected to be excited about assignments, that by definition, will limit our creative freedom? You would probably suggest that this is a necessity to keep structure among the different writers. Yes, we require structure to function as a society but when do we determine when too much power has been taken away from the writer in expressing personal belief in their papers. When will writers find the freedom we have dreamed of? If we continue limiting writers we will define their views and prevent them from breaking free in the future! After all a bird trapped within its cage will never want to leave once it is forced to stay within its confined. Now a days, It feels as if blogs are the only resource to express a writers true ideals and give actual freedom through your words.
Freedom within a cage? Is it possible?
With that being said, blogs are wonderful assets when it comes to expressing your ideals. They allow you to speak about any topic you desire, and give honest opinions without worry of backlash. There is no defining structure that will limit your ability to speak with your reader. Only in freedom can we truly have a voice, and that cannot be found in academic journals. Only with an open mind can we find solutions to this writers block, and encourage others to write with passion. But until that solution is found using blogs to mend a writers broken spirit will have to suffice. Let us dream fellow writers, dream of freedom.
Over the course of the semester I had the opportunity to take an english course, and practice developing my writing skills. The morning “daily grades” were a form of writing in which we either wrote about a topic or a free write about our current status in the class. I think the assignment was interesting and provided us a great opportunity to write at our pace and self improve.
In terms of free-writing I think my skills have improved quite a bit. When given a topic I write quickly about what comes to my head without worry of grammar mistakes. This allows me to get my ideas down on the paper while im still thinking of them! Without the worry of being harshly graded I am much more creative and faster at getting my word count up. And in this format I was able to express my personal opinions about the topics, which was in my opinion, a very fun exercise that got me started in the morning. This very concept was wonderful for developing ideas and as a basis for a personal paper, because you only have to worry about getting the words down and correcting grammar later on.
In regards to my style of writing, I feel that I improved a decent amount. Before taking this course writing a MLA formatted paper was quite a difficult task. I had trouble putting everything together properly, citing authors, and the overall format was hard for me to implement. Over time I got better at crafting my papers and understanding what this format required of me. Unfortunately I still dont feel confident in my ability to write a great paper, and wish I had the opportunity to work 1 on 1 with the instructor. I would have preferred to write at least 1 paper using the MLA format while in the classroom setting, so that I could get immediate feedback on a assignment and understand where I am struggling. Sometimes it’s hard for me to figure out why I am struggling on my assignment and maybe knowing what the problem is might have helped with what feels like writers block. But overall I learned a lot in this course and would recommend it to everyone. I was taught how to work on my paper in a productive manner, how to write a blog, and where to find sources for my academic research. And the opportunity to ask an instructor for information is a valuable resource.
As a writer I feel much more accomplished, because I learned a lot about the structure of a MLA paper and can write papers without much guidance. I love the ability to write about whatever your heart desires, and share your ideas with others. I want to improve my overall writing ability and grammar so that these tasks are even easier to accomplish. And I want to be able to write a MLA formatted paper with ease, and feel confident about my papers. Thankfully this class provided me with the necessary foundation for improvement when past classes did not. In the future I hope that these goals are reached, and I will be able to help others as a result.
