Washburn 1

Hellen Washburn
ENC 1101-0114
21 November 2014
Paper 3 Final Draft
The Writing Process

Scholarly Articles

Writing in college is very different from writing in high school. The process is so much
longer and includes steps that most high schoolers will never think about: planning, invention,
outlining, drafting, developing, revising, and editing. While high school writers usually only
write one or two drafts, college can have as many as ten drafts, and even then the paper might
not be done. Another difference in writing is the fact that college students revise, or at least
should revise all of their papers. Until one gets into college, they dont really understand what
revising is or how to go about doing it. A couple of articles below explain the differences
between beginners and experienced writers.
Mike Rose was a professor at UCLA when he wrote Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and
the Stifling of Language: A Cognitivist Analysis of Writers Block. In this article, Rose
explains the differences between college students who get writers block and those who dont.
He found out that the students who suffered through writers block kept strictly following rules
that they were taught in middle/high school. For example, one student said that an essay has to
grab the readers attention immediately and therefore the student would take hours trying to
come up with something catchy to write for the introduction. She wouldnt write anything else
until she finished the introduction. In contrast, the non-blockers pretty much followed their

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own rules while writing. If it wont fit my work, Ill change it. These students ignored
textbook rules and just wrote instead of getting stuck.
Another article about the writing process is Revision Strategies of Student Writers and
Experienced Adult Writers by Nancy Sommers. This article describes how student and adult
writers differ in how they revise papers. Sommers discovered that student writers were very
rudimentary about revising. For instance, instead of the word revise, students say scratch out
and do over again, review, and slash and throw out. Students didnt really change much of
their paper once it was written. Dissimilarly, adult writers used rewrite and revise to describe
this process. Sommers says that the most important goal for adult writers while revising is
finding the form or shape of the argument.

Methods

My subject for this paper is Josh. He is in American History 2020 and his assignment was
to write a biography about someone he chose from a list of historical figures. His teacher
specifically wanted him to write about Ronald Reagan because his previous paper was so good
and the teacher thought he would do Reagan justice. I observed Josh writing his paper from start
to finish and wrote notes. I noted what he did to prepare to write, what resources he used, what
he got distracted by, and how long he would write.

Results

Before starting to write, Josh went to the UCF library website to look up books about
Ronald Reagan and picked up five different ones. When he started his paper, he only wrote for
about thirty minutes and then stopped. During this time, he plays Bruce Springsteen Radio on

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Pandora. Since I know that he doesnt normally listen to this kind of music, I questioned him. I
like listening to music while writing because it relaxes me. I chose this radio because Reagan
was president in the 80s and thats when Springsteen made music. It helps me get in the right
mind set. The first thing he wrote was, not surprisingly, the title. What was surprising was how
catchy it was and how fast he came up with it: From the Big Screen to the Big House. He
informed me that he already had some previous knowledge of Reagan and knew that he was an
actor before becoming president. Next, he wrote his works cited page. Again, not surprising. Get
that out of the way before starting the real paper. After a half an hour, Josh got distracted by his
roommate who showed him something on Facebook. At first, I thought he would be getting
distracted throughout his entire paper but later observations prove that theory wrong. Once he
started writing, it was hard for him to get side-lined except for, of course, hunger pains.

The next time Josh sat down at his computer to write again was much later that same
night. He again plays music, but this time its from the 20s. When questioned, he replied,
Thats when Reagan was born and Im about to start writing about when he was a kid. I had
never heard of anyone being that invested in a paper as to change what genre of music they listen
to so they could be in the right mind set. Very interesting technique. He started diving into the
books, one in particular that focused on his early life. He uses the books to cross reference
information to make sure that it is true. While reading and writing about Reagans childhood,
Josh starts talking to people in the room and telling them different things about Reagan that he
thought were cool. He showed a lot of interest in his subject which was very refreshing to
observe. After reading for a while, he starts to stress out about how much information he has to
write about saying the paper is going to be at least a hundred pages, exaggerating of course.
This is a reoccurring obstacle he faces throughout the entire paper. As he finishes the second

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paragraph, he goes back and reads what hes written so far changing sentences around and
adding new information. He then asks his roommate, Manny to read it and to just tell him if it
sounds right. This particular incident reminded me about Nancy Sommers article when she says
that student writers mainly focus on grammar and punctuation errors.
Josh doesnt write again until three days later where he reads over what he has and makes
some more changes. He turns on music from the 30s (Reagans later childhood years). He starts
reading and does so for about twenty minutes before writing any more. He writes a page and a
half about his high school years and goes a little into his college years. Josh reads what he has
written again and incorporates some quotes into existing paragraphs. He stops to get food and
starts after about an hour and a half. He jumps right back into reading and starts writing about
Reagans life on stage. He writes a couple paragraphs and then asks for punctuation advice from
Manny. Can I use a semicolon here? Or do I have to make it two different sentences? It was
out of the blue so I asked him why it was so important and he said that he didnt want to cite
from the same book twice since the two pieces of information related to each other. Another out
of the blue occurrence is when he stops writing, mid-paragraph, and goes back to the
introduction to write his thesis. I questioned him again and he said, I had a really good idea and
I didnt want to lose it. Pretty smart if you ask me. After reading for a while, he starts to get
worried about how long its taking him to find good information. He then takes a break from
reading the books to read his paper and adds/deletes stuff to make it flow better. As Josh gets to
the end of a few books, he knows that he doesnt have enough information so he winds up
looking at a website. At first he doesnt like it. From what I observed, the only reason for the
dislike is that he doesnt know how to cite a website. However, he stuck with it and actually
found a lot of useful information. After reading through the website, he feels that he is not fully

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informed about politics and therefore the information is hard to follow, which in turn makes him
stress about doing well on the paper. He realizes what time it is (12:30AM) and rushes to finish
the paragraph he has been working on.

The next day, Josh came back from his history class and seemed re-excited about writing
the paper after talking to his professor. He finishes writing and then goes back, for the last time,
and reads his paper. He adds and deletes some stuff, re-words sentences, and touches up the
paper. To him, its perfect. Before printing it out, he has Manny read through it and make sure
its okay. Manny makes some minor revisions just regarding how the paper sounds.

Discussion

After the experience of observing Josh write his paper, I learned about his writing
process. The first thing I noticed was that he doesnt plan or outline at all. When I asked him
about this he just said that he didnt feel like he needed to. Another aspect of his process that
stood out to me was the fact that he actually uses books as sources for information. Ive never
encountered anyone that goes to the library to get books for a paper. An additional item I noticed
was that Josh revises while he writes instead of leaving it until the end. This was a characteristic
that Sommers mentioned about adult writers. Referring to the Roses article about blockers and
non-blockers, I believe Josh is a non-blocker. Most of the time that I watched him, he only got
distracted one or two times. He just kept writing until he was done.

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Works Cited
Rose, Mike. Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of Language: A Cognitivist Analysis
of Writers Block. Writing About Writing: A College Reader. Ed. Elizabeth Wardle and
Doug Downs. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2014. 532-546. Print.
Sommers, Nancy. Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers.
Writing About Writing: A College Reader. Ed. Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs.
Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2014. 572-589. Print.