WRIT 1302 EPAU EMMANUEL
Letter from the editor
It’s December - and that means the first fall semester is finally winding down. Christmas
is around the corner bringing hope, love, and happiness to us amidst the pandemic. It has not been easy for all of us because of the pandemic and other factors like staying up too late in the night studying from home as an international student. Amidst all this, I have learned to treasure every moment in life and to be flexible with every situation like co-existing with the pandemic for life to move on, which I think all of us can do and maintain. But before we celebrate this festive season and have precious time with loved ones, it’s time to reflect on my theory of writing when I just joined college compared to now as I conclude this first semester. It’s interesting when I look back at my old self to see what I believed in, what I knew about writing, and the transformation to what I believe in now. When I joined St. Edward’s University, I didn’t know what I was to do with the writing class or even expect out of it. Just like they say, “The road to success is never straight” I found it hard to write my first writing project, not because I didn’t know how but because I was failing to start. It is the uniquely organized teaching method done by Professor Elizabeth Eakman that has transformed and made me the good writer I am today. Enjoy reading! Emmanuel Epau.
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Table of Contents Cover page.
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Letter from the editor
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Table Of Contents
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A Preliminary Theory of Writing.
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Reflection for the Preliminary Theory of Writing.
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What’s the Writers’ process and Practices?
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Reflection for the Writers’ process and Practices.
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Revised Theory Of Writing.
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Reflection for Revised Theory Of Writing.
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About The Author.
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A Preliminary Theory of Writing. People anywhere in the world go through various experiences in their lives. Every experience affects a person in some way or the other. The effect can be good, bad, or even interestingly a combination of both. This is because the mind is a very interesting part of our bodies, as we tend to do and even become what it thinks for us. Growing up in a different environment back home in East Africa, in a small town named Bugembe, has made me appreciate the skill of writing through handwriting most of my work. This takes me years back to when I was six years old, as far as I can remember in my nursery class. I had to go through many struggles with the help of my teachers to ensure that I learned how to hold a pen and write. One of the first most memorable challenges I faced at school was to write my name. This up to date comes to mind as my first experience and genesis into the world of writing. While struggling with lines of sticklike marks in my funny looking blue book just to come up with the letter “E�, I knew good writing was first about having my letters aligned on one horizontal line. I was inspired through the process by our joyous teacher who always drew horizontal lines on the chalkboard to illustrate what she wanted us to do exactly. Her theory of writing basics enabled us to have neat handwriting, something that I give her credit for in all the assignments we did in the classes that followed. Given the structure of the education system in Uganda, students always depend on handwritten notes. My first teacher’s instruction kept this practice alive in me since then, knowing I needed to be 4
In my fourth year of high school, I was introduced to summary writing and essay writing. There I found a more developed view of who a good and bad writer is. While in that class, my English teacher introduced me to the idea of using careful grammar while writing. At this level of senior four, a good writer was one who used good grammar and punctuation in writing. Mr. Mukyawe Paul, the oldest serving English teacher in school, always encouraged good writing by highlighting the best examples. I became interested in poetry while at this level, which made me believe good writers were just born with abilities that average writers didn't have. I always gave up whenever I gave it a try while in the school library since I was already considering it as a talent, an inborn ability one can have. My appreciation of poetry made me accept and embrace the fear of writing at first. My fear stayed with me for almost one year until my final year of high school when I met a great gentleman named Mr. Paul Kilimi Wanda, a social critic, poet, editor, and teacher in my school. He was my General Paper teacher in my last year of high school. He taught a general class aimed at enabling us to attain maturity of thought appropriate to our level of mental development. It further developed our understanding and use of English so we were able to express arguments, ideas, and opinions reflectively and academically. In this class, we were also introduced to a more advanced format of writing mainly to help us pass the national exams that were coming up soon.
Mr. Kilimi simply polished my understanding of good writing into something possible for me to understand and easy to apply. He made me understand that everyone could write through the different class assignments and exams which challenged us. He always appreciated it when we used descriptive language in writing, something that always added fun and imagery to the sample articles he read to us for inspiration. Being an editor, he always read carefully through all the writings of a class of over ninety students and always wrote in our written pieces of work pointing out what he considered important. Reading through his comments on my exam paper always left me changed in the way I write, considering his comments and keeping up with what he considered excellent. This greatly increased my interest in writing and to a greater extent reduced the limited ideology I had about good writers being born that way because there were still good students in the same class with me at writing. From these experiences, since I was six, I now believe good writing is one that has or creates a connection to the reader while bad writing is one that doesn’t have a clear meaning which is easy to follow and attacks the readers’ values in one way or the other. Good writings are usually characterized by their descriptive nature. They have stories that flow well while reading and they remain with the readers to create a positive impact afterward. However bad writings are normally characterized by mixed-up stories that are hard to follow and connect. As I said earlier on, I recognize good or bad writing by seeing the jumbled stories in the readings, the flow of the story from the start of the book to the end, how the writer chooses her characters and how she distributes roles, and also the predictability of the story in the writing makes it so boring. Good writing is more realistic than what I consider bad writing. Good writers are those whose writings touch their readers and remain with them while bad writers are those whose writing diverts from the
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readers’ expectations or interests. When I think of a good writer, I imagine an individual who enjoys their writings and spends a lot of time on their work, one who writes through inspiration to share discovered knowledge with the world. Additionally, whenever I think of a bad writer I imagine a person who writes to earn money from his/her writings and doesn’t spend careful time on his/her work, and doesn’t mind the interest of the readers or any positive impact. Good writers generally reflect a lot about their writings and spend a lot of time on their pieces to ensure that they have a clear meaning. They always seek knowledge, views, and critiques from colleagues and friends before publishing. They proofread their work and research their writing process to ensure that they deliver true content to their readers. On the other hand, bad writers usually invest little time in their work since most of them concentrate on having many books written rather than their impact. So through my process of writing, the theories I kept getting in the different stages of my life have helped me a lot in moving on from one level to another. I first learned how to hold a pencil and be neat while growing up, then I learned the mechanics of grammar in writing and I was temporarily afraid of writing at a certain point in life and I didn’t believe in myself. Now I know that good writing is all about the correct use of grammar in any given language to make sensible meaning to the readers. I as well know writing is not a hard thing and it only takes practice and dedication to improve and become better at it. Writing is the process of composing text from our thoughts to the world, and this means everyone can write since all this originates and comes from our thoughts and brains which we all have! Though some writers are born with special creativity, they still undergo training and repeated practice to become great writers. This completely shows that great writers or leaders are self-made. If we are dedicated to becoming great writers, amidst all the rejections and challenges, we will surely become the good writers I described above. I believe these are the ones who make great writers in life: writers who not only write through inspiration but write to inspire.
What’s the Writers’ process and Practices?
Reflection for the Preliminary Theory of Writing.
Following a Preliminary Theory of Writing which I did earlier about my theories of writing, I have researched my processes and practices and then compared them to those of professional writers and my peers. The purpose of this research is to find out the best time of the day for writers to write, and how this time affects the quality of their writing pieces either negatively or positively. You might wonder why most writers write either early in the morning, or late in the evening and what drives them to have pages of great work. The methods I used to collect data from a class of 19 students for about two and half weeks were: I researched my processes and practices of writing.
According to EnglishClub.com, the world’s premier free educational website for learners + teachers of English, writing is the process of using symbols (letters of the alphabet, punctuation, and spaces) to communicate thoughts and ideas in a readable form. It is not as easy as it sounds in the definition because many people have tried it and given up because of various reasons. What stands out for me is the ideology of “that isn’t for me” because some people do it better than you. I was once that person who believed writing was for the talented, those who were naturally born writers but this killed the writer in me for one year before I realized I was wrong.
My peers and I as a class kept a practice log where we all took notes on our practices and processes using Google documents where a color-coding format was used to ease access of data by everyone who needed it. We then created a google form to track data on some of the practices and get graphs but it, unfortunately, didn’t work out as we expected. We then changed from google forms and created a Google sheet to provide easily quantifiable data. I read different articles by professional writers about their practices and processes of writing using a google document we created in our different groups. Which made everything to ensure that correct data was being recorded by fellow peers. This data was easily obtained with the help of the color-coding format that allows one to find and understand the collected data. I then chose a theme of “time of the day when I write,” to compare it with that of my fellow peers and the professional writers. I did this by looking at the already highlighted information in a specific color concerning time, I looked at the sheets that showed visible raw data which is very reliable having collected it by myself using 19 members of my class and a few professional writers in a virtual setting.
Many of you are probably in the same pit I was in by then but the one thing you should know is writing is all about what is in our minds, because we simply compose text from our thoughts and brains. However, this is only possible if we eliminate the thinking of “that isn’t for me” and the doubts in us. I learned to always have a free mind. What has changed is my perceptions of a bad writer when I said “... Additionally, whenever I think of a bad writer I imagine a person who writes to earn money from his/her writings...” which is not the case to me now because most writers need to earn from their writing to enable them to continue to write and manage their families, so interest in earning money does not make one a bad writer.
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Out of 19 participants in my class, results from both the google sheet and document showed that 47.5% of the participants wrote in the evening, 21.2% in the afternoon, and 31.3% in the morning as shown on the pie chart and column graph below.
3.Busy daily schedules. This is what has mixed up my results a little bit to come up with the afternoon time. Many students have such busy schedules that they fail to get a specific time to write daily and instead write whenever they get time. So because of this, you can find a participant who writes at all times which is common for students.
The data I collected didn't just concentrate on either morning or evening time of the day but rather broadened this research with afternoon time inclusive since some of the participants preferred writing in the afternoon. Various factors contributed to these results from the above participants and some of them include as follows: 1.Personal preference. This was evidenced when some participants preferred writing in the afternoon at a coffee shop, compound, or any public area considering some environmental factors. 2.The time difference between countries from where these participants are residing. This was common among international students who have no option other than considering the morning time to write since they attend class through zoom at odd times in their countries. Some students simply consider the silence at night that allows them to reflect while writing.
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4.This simply explains that a greater number of people prefer writing when there are fewer disturbances and noise around. This agrees with the fact discussed by most writers about good writers writing either early in the morning or late in the evening just like Robert Sanchez, a professional writer who writes both in the morning and night just because of the space and silence available at such moments. I find myself in categories 3 and 2 because as an international student in Uganda and now 9 hours ahead of Texas, my writing process usually begins at 8:20 in the morning. Seated at my table with the door locked, I activate airplane mode on my phone and I then take time to read the instructions and the question to understand what it requires me to do. I reflect and think about what I need to write, connecting with the question. This normally takes me five minutes to figure out what I am supposed to specifically do. After 5 to 6 minutes, I turn on my soft music, get close to my work table in my square-shaped room, and handwrite an outline showing my workflow on what I plan to write for a specific assignment. I then start adding brief notes on every point of my work to help guide me when I get to the typing part of the process while in the small square world of my room. Considering this step as the most important during this process, it usually takes me thirty minutes to get done with it. I then take a very short break of around 4-5 minutes at this moment, move outside and have some fresh air before I embark on more work. This practice in the process serves me because it is the genesis of every step that comes after until I am done with the writing. It’s where I develop and create whatever I write in the assignment since it acts like my template to come up with the broader piece of writing and because of this, it helps me a lot in having a smooth flow of writing.
At this point at 9:00, I get to my laptop and start typing my draft using the outline I wrote earlier and adding in any more words that come to mind while typing. I keep reading through my work while correcting sentences here and there till I complete what I had planned. This is my most challenging part of this process while formulating my speech because it requires a lot of creative thinking to come up with good work. I don’t feel frustrated though while at this stage instead, it’s more of a challenge for me to accomplish and earn good marks at the end of the day. This encourages me to add more effort and feels confident, energized, and proud of myself for the progress I am making. I am currently slow at typing because of my limited exposure to mainly a computer back home. I generally got exposed to computers but didn’t have a chance to own or be near one, to be able to attain skills like typing. So this normally takes a long time of roughly an hour considering the different angles I take while thinking about some parts of the material stretching up to 10:00. I then take another break at this moment to do other activities on my “to do’’ list that I am meant to complete before class time. Which takes me two hours to complete other assignments and then have my time later. After lunch, around 2p.m I get back to my draft to read and work on errors, delete what I don’t find interesting, and replace some words. This includes sharing my draft with a friend to proofread, comment, and give personal views on my work regarding what does and doesn’t stand out before I finalize it for submission at the time desired but before the time due. This is the most interesting part of this process while finalizing my writing, it’s always fun when I let someone show me both the obvious and non-obvious mistakes and errors I made; however, it’s also challenging to some extent to re-edit a final copy that I worked so hard to complete. I usually freeze and get stuck on what to do exactly, at times I have to read the comments several times to ensure I understand the edit suggestions then embark on another journey of editing some parts, which is tiresome but worth it because it gives me a feeling of satisfaction when it’s all done.
I, therefore, contradict with some professional writers considering the time of the day when we write as described in their different articles. Some of them like John Steinbeck and Rachel Monroe prefer writing in the morning while Rita Dove and Pearson prefer writing at night when there is total silence. And for Robert Sanchez, he writes both in the morning and evening when the environment is silent. In comparison with all these processes both with my peers and professional writers, I observed that I am a writer who works best in the morning when I am fresh with soft instrumental music in the background and it’s interesting that some people concentrate more and do best in the evening or at night compared to my writing practice. And this has made me think of trying out the evening time since they all have the same environmental advantages. My limitations during this research were that I only had 19 participants to have quantifiable data which does not show results of the whole world, the time was very short to have enough detailed data, and the fact that we were meeting virtually which has forced us to adapt. So if I had more time, I would get back to class and ask more about how they feel about their writing time, how confident they are while writing at that time, and finally what could be the result if they found themselves in another time zone that they had to write at a different time. In conclusion, most writers or upcoming writers today fail to write not because they can’t but because they write at the wrong time of the day. We often write because of deadlines and the need to complete assignments or projects on time which makes us write at the wrong time of the day when our minds are not ready to process information. And the biggest percentages of my findings among my fellow peers with that of the professional writers show and conclude that indeed most people prefer to write either in the morning or in the evening. This is because it is at this time when there is enough silence or space for one to concentrate and reflect.
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Reflection for the Writers’ process and Practices.
And this always made me think good handwriting also made a good writer, something that has changed in me because of the advances in technology. I have learned that apart from a pen and paper, there are many more writing tools writers use to write and remain impactful. I knew good writers didn’t have any social life just like a normal person could be, I always thought of them as special introvert people without families (children) because of the kind of jobs they have and whose lifestyles are silent however after reading some articles Pamela Colloff in her article “From long stretches to 30-minute bursts” talks about how she manages and balances her family life with work when she says..”With few exceptions, I didn’t meet friends for coffee or lunch during the workday. I tried to make every minute count because I had a hard stop at the end of the afternoon when I had to pick up my kids from school. I worked at my office in downtown Austin, and I didn’t maintain a workspace at home; I liked having two separate places for work and family.”...but now she shares a home office with her husband, and is learning how to work in 30-minute increments that happen between parenting duties: helping the kids with homework, taking them on walks, and organizing off-screen activities. This changed that mindset and I now know writers out there are normal people too with a social life. My WRIT-1301-04 class professor, Prof. Elizabeth Eakman is a live example when she manages class in her home with the adorable dog that keeps blindly walking around the room. I didn’t pay attention to my process of writing earlier on in my high school since I mainly did writing while in an exam because of the many papers I had to balance. This immediately changed when I joined this class and most importantly the change in my schedule made me so sensitive to the time I spend doing assignments and more specific on my writing process highlighted by this class. The change is that I now know my writing process unlike in the past years. I knew writing was all about having an introduction, the body, then a conclusion to make a good piece of writing. And growing up with a love of music and poetry, my music teacher always told us music is poetry so this also made me think music artists were writers.
The question “When is the best time to write?” may not be answered depending on the actual time when people are generally free but when one has peace of mind. Just like I explained earlier, for one to be able to write, he/she needs a peaceful mind to think. The reason why most of us students write at any time is because we don’t often have free time to write while working on deadlines. And because of this, we tend to be under pressure with a lot going on in our minds that we conclude writing is hard and hectic to do. But to answer the question above, it is simply when one has a peaceful mind with no interruptions because creativity depends on how good are you using your brain on a specific topic. What has changed is that I not only write in the morning like it was before but also in the evening and at any time I am free and feel like writing. I learned to never write or compose anything when I am stressed and worked out because it is at these moments that the brain needs to rest, so it’s important to always write when you’re fresh or give yourself breaks while writing.
Revised Theory Of Writing. Reflection is indeed interesting especially when looking back at your old self, scanning through your beliefs, thesis, and the facts you had, then comparing them with your current perspective of the same topic in question. I always wondered what I would do if I met my old self, what changes could I make, what advice I would give to myself, I guess many things but not much in my world of writing. As I said earlier in one of my writings, growing up in a small area called Bugembe in Uganda has made me have somehow a different perspective in comparison with my colleagues in other countries. In brief, “writing was creativity” throughout my high school years. Something that made me think of it at some point in life as a talent, an inborn ability one must have to write great impactful pieces of writing. In a developing country like Uganda, most students handwrite their notes from nursery to primary then to high school, and some actually at university because they can’t afford to buy laptops.
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From the start, good writing was the use of correct grammar and spellings while writing. What surprised me while reading through my writing project was one of my perceptions of a bad writer when I said “... Additionally, whenever I think of a bad writer I imagine a person who writes to earn money from his/her writings...” which is not the case to me now because most writers need to earn from their writing to enable them to continue to write and manage their families, so interest in earning money does not make one a bad writer. I will change very few things in my thinking or practices as I have been explaining because nothing much has changed. The practice logs shared by classmates in a google document provided me with data concerning the tools of writing which proved to me that one doesn’t need a pen and paper to be a good writer as 90% of my class used laptops most of the time to write. Looking back a few months starting from Monday 24th August 2020 when we started class up to date, I observe that there is no great change in my ideas about writers and writing. However, there has still been a transformation in me over the semester with the exposure I have had. I now know writing is not all about having good handwriting but simply composing text from our thoughts to the world which also explains why it’s not about being talented or having an inborn ability since we all can write down our thoughts to the world. The use of the five-paragraph essay wisely is another thing that has changed considering the three paragraphs I have been used to. I found it interesting to have a format that gives you the structure of what is expected just to be brief and on point and I now consider it to be important and putting it in mind while writing because it has indeed improved my earlier three-paragraph essay format. Just like I said, I still believe good writing is one that has or creates a connection to the reader while bad writing is one that doesn’t have a clear meaning which is easy to follow and attacks the readers’ values in one way or the other. Good writings are usually characterized by their descriptive nature. They have stories that flow well while reading and they remain with the readers to create a positive impact afterward.
However bad writings are normally characterized by mixed-up stories that are hard to follow and connect. I recognize good or bad writing by seeing the jumbled stories in the readings, the flow of the story from the start of the book to the end, how the writer chooses her characters and how she distributes roles, and also the predictability of the story in the writing makes it so boring. Good writing is more realistic than what I consider bad writing. Good writers are those whose writings touch their readers and remain with them while bad writers are those whose writing diverts from the readers’ expectations or interests. When I think of a good writer, I imagine an individual who enjoys their writings and spends a lot of time on their work, one who writes through inspiration to share discovered knowledge with the world. Additionally, whenever I think of a bad writer I imagine a person who doesn’t spend enough time on his/her work and doesn’t mind the interest of the readers or any positive impact. Good writers generally reflect a lot about their writings and spend a lot of time on their pieces to ensure that they have a clear meaning. They always seek knowledge, views, and critiques from colleagues and friends before publishing. They proofread their work and research their writing process to ensure that they deliver true content to their readers. On the other hand, bad writers usually invest little time in their work since most of them concentrate on having many books written rather than their impact. I still believe writing is not a hard thing and it only takes practice and dedication to improve and become better at it which completely shows that great writers or leaders are self-made. Another great change is my spelling of some words. Born in a country that was colonized by the British, I have grown up being taught different ways of writing spellings compared to the American way. Being at such a great university has taught me to be flexible with change starting with the new normal of co-existing with covid-19. I have had to always change from the letter “S” to “Z” in some words like “specialized” to “specialized” then change some word spellings from “Humour” to “Humor” and “flavour” to “flavor”.
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This has also changed my theory from being stuck on the British spelling to being flexible while writing in consideration of the country I am writing for. At this level, I feel so much proud of myself because of the great improvement I have made in my writing life, and don’t regret the transformation.
because I realized it is time-saving while other colleagues explained it’s benefits. And lastly, the peer editing sessions also helped me a lot in learning how to avoid being so wordy in writing and many other issues. While I am still on the journey of building my career, I will transfer all that I have learned from this class as described above to other classes which I have already done in some but my biggest takeaway and what I will always transfer in all my work is ‘creativity’. The power of creativity does a lot in adding value to anything. At this point in my life, I no longer see writing as something really hard to do, I see it as something everyone can do since we all have heads. It only takes one to sit down and write several times and most importantly not giving up with the practice of writing because it is in the developing stage that we tend to. And yes, naturally good writers exist but it also takes time, and practice for them to be that good. “Courage is very important. Like a muscle, it is strengthened by use.” by Ruth Gordon.
Reflection for Revised Theory Of Writing.
Looking back to my first days of class and comparing them to today, there are a lot of things that have changed just like I explained in my final theory of writing to make the writer in me. As I explained, I have had to change from the British spellings to American, I have changed from first writing my work to typing it directly as I edit, I have learned to use the five-paragraph essay format from the three-paragraph essay I was using earlier. The cause for all these changes was the class sessions when the professor explained more about some of these and their role in improving a piece of writing especially the 5-paragraph essay. The different interactions with my classmates helped me learn more about how different other students approached writing. It is from here that I realized I could also simply type my work without first writing it on paper
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About the Author Emmanuel Epau
He is a growing writer, leader, public speaker, e ntrepreneur, and a creative young man, born in Uganda, East Africa, and the last born in a family of four. He was brought up in Jinja, now a city, and educated in private Holy Cross schools from nursery to secondary until he found his way to St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas. He is now shaping his new career from sciences to business while majoring in business administration and minoring in digital marketing Emmanuel spends his free time traveling, talking to people, making new friends, writing, cooking, doing photography, and listening to music.
You can keep in touch with him via Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.