AWD Reection Essay Isaac Boehman of 1 2

My views on the act of writing havent changed much, if at all this semester. Before this class
started I was (and still am) maintaining a blog on my personal site, so its fairly clear that I am
not averse to the process of writing. However, what I am averse to is writing about things that
just do not interest me in the least. Unfortunately, a lot of the writing that gets assigned in
classes tends to fall into this category, which leads me to procrastinate.

I dont think my views on what it means to be a writer have changed much this semester. If you
think about it, were all writers in some respect, theres just those who tend to self-identify as
writers more than others. Those who do so tend to thoroughly enjoy the process and the results
it brings, very likely because they have been told their writing is good and have been
encouraged to work on it throughout their educational career. Within the category of writer, I
myself would not identify primarily as a writer, though perhaps as a writer out of necessity. Ive
never had many friends, and I think that is part of the reason that I was so drawn to internet
forums as a kid and teenager, and to an extent, still am. I love how low pressure it is to
participate in them, you are able to join in on a discussion at any time by just reading what had
previously been written and then adding your own thoughts. Additionally, it just made me feel
somewhat included, something I desperately needed. So who am I as a writer? I write to
communicate with those people that, were they not spread across the globe, would be my
friends.

As the course progressed, I gradually realized that I was looking at a much too narrow segment
of my actual discourse community, those involved with computer science and its related elds.
Initially I focused on security researchers and professionals, but this became constricting when I
realized that, while yes, security is one of my main professional interests, it is not my only
professional interest. This gradual realization actually comes with a sense of relief. While before
I felt pressured and constrained by my choice, I now realize that I am not simply limited to just
that discourse community, but rather, I can oat between those that pique my interest as I
choose. In this respect, I lean towards Swaless take on discourse communities rather than
Gees. While Gee makes a number of good points about how discourse communities are
formed, I feel his theory that you cannot choose to enter a discourse community (rather, you just
are or arent a part) is simply too restricting for my taste. Conversely, Swales has a much
more exible theory of discourse community membership, which can be seen in this quote from
the reading Discourse communities have changing memberships; individuals enter as
apprentices and leave by death or in other less involuntary ways.

Within my discourse community, there are numerous genres that are used. Some of the ones
that I interact with most frequently come in the form of blog posts. Another very important genre
is that of the scholarly research paper, arguably the most important genre in any sort of
discourse community as its through these papers that the communitys eld is advanced.

Over the summester (as one of my friends so eloquently described it), my writing process
hasnt changed in any large respect, though a number of small improvements have certainly
snuck their way in. I still start everything with a basic outline, gradually ushing it out as I gure
out what point Im going to want to make. One thing I nd helpful when making these outlines is
to build a mind map, I nd it really helps me to be able to visualize the structure of the individual
sections of a paper. Once Ive completed the outline to my satisfaction and nally gured out
what Im writing about, I tend to simply just write out the outline in sentence form. I generally
dont go back and re-read my paper once its complete unless I really felt I rushed it. This is
AWD Reection Essay Isaac Boehman of 2 2
because I tend to edit my own paper while in the process of actively writing it. In other words,
while stuck guring out what I wanted to write next, Ill reread the paragraph or section I just
wrote and see if anything sounds funny or could be reworded to something clearer. However,
because of this class I am now much more cognizant of who the audience of my work will be
while in the process of writing. This is something that was always present subconsciously during
the writing process, though now that it has become a conscious consideration, I feel my writing
can only get better.

One thing that I feel I need to work on improving within my writing process is getting that rst
shitty draft written. I feel that beginning to write earlier would help quite a bit, since in my current
process, its quite a feat to sit down and write the entire thing in one go. The reading by Anne
Lamott makes a good point when it calls the rst draft the down draft, as in, its a draft where
you just get everything you want to say on the page. I feel if I were to have a down draft with a
slightly less complete outline, writing the nal paper would be a much less stressful task.

All in all, Im glad to have taken this class when I did. I feel the writing practice the course forced
upon all of us was really benecial and I learned a number of things that I feel will help me
improve as a writer in the long run. The thing that will stick with me most though is learning what
the hell rhetoric is! I knew what a rhetorical question was, but never bothered or needed to know
what rhetoric itself is. That in and of itself made the class worth it.