English 521: Composition Theory and Pedagogy

     I feel that I struggle with my writing more than someone in my position should. In the non-English courses I took during my time as an undergraduate I always heard, "well, you won't mind writing the paper that's due for this class." My peers always assumed that I was studying English either because I liked writing, or could write easily. I hate nothing more than writing. Well, except really horrible things like war and disease.

     I have been thinking about writing this paper since Dr. Yagelski announced its due date during class two weeks ago. The thought of sitting here typing out this paper like I am doing now has been eating at my brain. At the same time I just want to run away from the thought of having to write another paper, and yearn to procrastinate until I have no choice.

     I also like to play with the thesaurus -- "yearn" is a fun word to use instead of repeating "want." Being extremely choosey with my words is way I procrastinate while writing. It is partially because I try to write well and choose every word carefully, but sometimes the time I spend on constructing just one sentence is ridiculous. I can go beyond being picky, and end up in the realm of compulsive. I spend too much time worrying about trivial aspects of my writing, like what exact wording I should use. I should be concentrating my efforts more on other aspects, such as style.

     I have been working on changing my writing style over the last year. I do not think that the way I typically write, passive and dry, is either appropriate or interesting. I have been trying to figure out when I was taught to write in the passive voice. By the time I entered college, I wrote naturally in the passive voice. At some point in my high school career I was taught that the passive voice was appropriate for "formal" writing, such as for writing an academic essay or a business letter. During my freshman year in college, I got all of my papers back from my professors with "passive" written on almost every page. I do not believe I even knew what my professors were trying to correct. I always had received high grades on my papers during high school, so I was shocked by the low grades I was getting on my papers during my first semester in college. I was getting C's on papers my high school teachers would have easily given A's. Needless to say, my first semester was a very shocking experience.

     I spent my freshman and sophomore years trying to correct the writing style I learned in high school. My main goal was to make my writing better, so my grades would improve. I was so embarrassed at the low grades my papers received, I made another mistake in my writing style. I re-learned how to write, but only to please my professors. I did not consider my personal writing style or voice. I did not care if I thought my writing was good. My only concern was that my grades increased. My grades did increase, as I learned how my professors wanted me to write, and for awhile I was very happy with my new writing style.

     During my senior year in college, I was the editor of my university's Women's Studies newsletter. I had written a few news articles before, but I was never taught APA style, or the differences between writing an essay and an article. The style, tone, audience, and format of a journal article is wholly different from that of an academic paper. Again, I had to re-learn how to write. I had to learn how to be direct, and concise. My first drafts of the articles were extremely wordy, and about twice as long as they should have been. I was used to having pages for my canvas. Learning how to fit my ideas into only a column of a page was difficult.

     I believe that my academic writing also changed during this period. I carried over what I had learned in journal writing into all my writing. I believe that my best writing to date came from that time. I have always had a problem with writing papers long enough to meet the length requirements set by my professors. To compensate for my lack of detail, I learned early on how to elongate my papers by expressing the few ideas I did have in a very long round-about way. I could make every sentence into two sentences. I also have noticed that writing in the passive voice is usually a longer way to express an idea. I wonder if that was another reason I began to write in the passive voice.

     Learning how to consolidate my thoughts helped my writing style. I recently looked back over the papers I wrote over my four years as an undergraduate and so many of them are very boring. I feel bad for the professors who had to fight to keep themselves awake while reading my papers. I never cared how interesting my writing was. I only worried about getting my papers to be at least the minimum amount of pages required, and being good enough to receive a good grade.

     Around the same time that I began writing in the passive voice, the thought of including myself in my papers was forced out of me. In high school I learned never to write "I" in a paper, and never to express my opinion, as an opinion. It was ingrained in my mind that the worst thing a student could write would be "I believe," or "I think." I was so afraid to accidentally include the dreaded "I" in an academic paper, that I lost my voice in my writing.

     I recently asked a friend to read over one of my papers before I turned it into my professor. Although my friend has known me for four years, this was the first time he had read one of my academic papers. He was shocked at how much the paper did not sound like it was written by me. My personality is totally lost in the "academic" style I have been writing in. Not only does this bother me because I think one's writing should reflect at least some part of themselves, but also I believe that this has made my writing very dry and boring. I have been trying to find my voice again, but years of writing dry, boring papers has taken its toll on my style. One exercise I have been using to bring life into my writing is to choose more carefully the topic I am writing about. I try to pick topics I feel very strongly about -- whether I am writing a rave review or a scathing criticism. The more passion I have towards a topic, the more likely it will be expressed in my writing.

     I believe that the best paper I have ever written has come out of this current period of my writing style. Last year I wrote a paper on Ezra Pound's translation of the Anglo-Saxon poem "The Seafarer." I was studying Anglo-Saxon for the first time, so I thought I should begin my studies with a poem I previously read. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, until I did my own translation of "The Seafarer." I quickly learned that Ezra Pound's version is full of grammatical, and vocabulary errors. Even though I was only a beginning translator, I knew that I was better than the great, canonized Ezra Pound. In this realization I not only found the confidence I was lacking in my studies, but also found my own voice. In the paper I wrote, I ripped apart Pound's translation, and actually had fun writing an academic paper. My paper on Pound is still my favorite piece of academic writing, and what made finding my own voice even better is that I received an A!

     My writing has definitely progressed in the last four years. The fact that I used "I" in this sentence is an attestable to that. I hoping that by working on finding my voice in my academic writing, I will also recover my creative writing. I have not written a poem, or any other creative work, in over two years. I believe that my writing will again undergo a change during my graduate studies, but it will be a positive transformation into the writing style I always wished I had.

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