Writing Self Study

First Draft
Studying yourself matters because it can teach or show you habits that
you didn't even know you use when composing papers, but also learn
how to become better writers and enhance your skills.

Anne Lamott, a successful writer has published 14 novels and nonfiction books since 1980, perhaps her most praised novel being Birdby-Bird: Some instructions on writing and life. She is known for her
self-deprecating humor and openness.
In her article Lamott more often talks about writing and how she and
others get through the process of composing articles and that even the
most acclaimed writers have difficulty with starting the process.
What one can interpret from her article "Shitty First Drafts" is that
thinking of what to write can be difficult for anyone no matter the level
of skill. She says "People tend to look at successful writers, who are
getting their books published and maybe even doing well finacially,
and think that they sit down at their desks every morning feeling like a
million dollars....roll their necks a few times and dive in...But this is just
a fantay of the uninitiated." (Lamott) Proving what was stated before
is true and applies to everyone.
Sondra Perl, a researcher who studies how unskilled writers write
argues that "To date no examination of composing processes has dealt

primarily with unskilled writers." (Perl)

While Lamott talks about wrting and how to get through process of
composing, Perl studies the actual process of how every individual
writes and composes.
From her findings Perl says that "All of the students studied displayed
consistent composing processes; that is the behavorial subsequences
prewriting, writing, and editing appeared in sequencial patterns that
were recognizable across writing sessions and across students. This
consistencey suggest a much greater internalization process than has
ever been suspected." (Perl)

The information from both authors are highly valuble in how to get
through writers' block and dicover how you compose and study but I
believe that I can add to both of their findings.
Unlike Perl who had people sit in a room with a researcher while they
talked aloud, I sat in my room while I recoreded myself with a camera
which is a lot less pressuring than having someone watch me and
constantly think that I have to talk aloud in order for the study to work.
I belive that listining with a cassette recorder (because this study was
done in the 70's), or seeing how you yourself compose is better than
hearing it from someone else is beneficial because you see your habits
first hand and can learn from it. If she had the students sit in the
rooms by themselves and record themselves on a tape recorder it
would have been a learning process for both the researcher and
student.
Lamott as stated above talks about writing and composing but I
learned how I write and compose. When you know your habits or
process it makes it much easier than having to distract yourself and
come back to it only to have even more ideas floating around in your
head and be even more frustrated than before.

Before I began writing my respose to Perl's I recorded myself with the

webcam on my computer. I then recorded myself while writing
response. I discovered that I often reread text form the book and what
I typed to see if any corrections may be needed or if what I said made
any sense at all.

My results were that I planned a total of 57 times while saying um,

looking around the room, fixing my hat, and stretching. This tells me
that I plan a lot internally and it can have its good and not so good
sides. I also found that I wrote aloud 41 times throughout my response
and it helped because hearing it in my head was one thing but hearing
them aloud was differnet and it lessened the amount of editing I had to
do. Like everyone I distract myself with singing, complaining, or being
hungry but I did not know that I tend to distract myself 21 times when
having to compose let alone write. My findings were completely
shocking to me and I began to think that if I compose or write
internally I may also do that in my eveyday life.

This study I belive was beneficial to me as a writer but also a tool to

teach me that I shouldn't keep everything bottled inside. I belive that
if an incoming freshman were to do this study they would a lot about
themselves and the type of writer that they are. They may find that
they may need to make changes or just stay the same and keep doing
what they do.