A personal reflection from 2018-2020 SUWC Consultant, Grace KohlerMy first memories of academic writing consisted of “word vomiting” on a page followed by minimal editing and confusion as to why I was not succeeding with my grades. In high school I was introduced to the beauty of outlining in order to organize my thinking. I fought this idea of outlining, by putting four to five surface level bullet points on a page and calling it good. However, this method was not going to help when I encountered my first three to five-page paper. I suddenly had a lot of pages to cover and an outline that gave me nothing to start with. I was going to need more. To my annoyance, properly outlining my thoughts helped me with everything it was meant to. I was producing clearer paragraphs and overall more organized papers. I threw out my previous ways of “word vomiting” and spent hours upon hours attempting to write every single sentence perfect the first time because I thought that was the point. The outline replaced the draft right? I worked from outline to final draft. Outlining is the most important right? Then one teacher said to me, “Your outline looks great, but the first draft should basically be ‘word vomit.’” … This was highly confusing.
Throughout the extent of my student career, I have been introduced to every part of the writing process and have been told that each singular step was the “most important”. I was told that as long as I had an outline, I would be good to go to write a solid paper. I was also told the same exact thing about first drafts, second drafts, revision, thesis statements, etc. What I understood about the writing process was that there was one key that I had to find to unlock the perfect paper. What I didn’t understand was I had all the keys, and all of them needed to be put into use at once. By focusing on one step and ignoring others I was missing the rest of the pieces to bring together my writing. I thought that if I could cut corners and just finish the one piece that I believed to be essential at the time, I would be able to bring together a good paper. This was not the case. These days I have a process I have found works for me. I start with an outline that consists of everything including class discussion, random thoughts, and book quotes. Then I piece it together in a very “word vomit” type draft. I then take that draft and push it to the side and write my thesis based on what I have come up with. Then I write a second draft and bring together the thesis, the “word vomit draft”, and any other supplementary ideas I come up with. Then I walk away. After a few hours and some coffee, I revisit my draft and start making edits and rewriting for a second draft. After final edits and peer read throughs I am done. It’s a long and frustrating process at times, but the moment I return back to my previous process (either throwing words on a page without editing or hyper editing every phrase) because I get lazy or decide to cut corners, I am unhappy with my product. It has been a long process, but it pays off and I can only encourage others to find what works. It might be a process similar to mine. It might be completely different. It truly is whatever works best and makes you proud of the work you have done. – Grace Kohler Seattle University Class of 2021 | English Literature and Interdisciplinary Arts major | SU Writing Center | 2018-Present, Writing Consultant and Lead Mentor
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January 2024
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