Wyatt Kuebler
Theory of writing
12-point font, double space, Times new roman, and a page minimum. The basics of every paper said in a sentence. But is writing really that simple. For most all people in the United States College system this is as much information as you’ll need to get a degree and hopefully begin your life as a college graduate. Regardless of what time period the geezer in the front of the classroom is talking about, or how many books your art history teacher tells you to read you really don’t need anything else but those four things to get a degree and move on with your life. writing in todays society is far from a necessity but holy shit are we influenced by it. See right there, depending on who you are, and how much writing means to you, or how in depth you are reading this that word might’ve triggered you. And if it didn’t then you at least noticed it and thought about how it has no place in a writing piece such as this and automatically makes my entire argument irrelevant. But no not really, it just influenced you that much without you even noticing or caring you had an opinion and your own idea based off of one word.
Starting my first semester of college I walked into my first class, English. And I walked in thinking about how all I’m going to do for the next weeks is write papers and hate my life. I was half right, I did have to write papers but I was wrong about hating my life. I didn’t hate my life or anything close to that, I had fun most days and most importantly I actually learned, and I learned about writing, and since this is my own theory of writing I can say that it was damn cool. Now I for sure could’ve taken more away if I cared that much about bettering myself, but what this class did teach me was that there are these things within almost everything your read, that you never noticed before. These subtle things that were written either on purpose or accidentally, completely effect how you view and understand a paper. Rhetoric is crazy and I still don’t really understand it, what I do know however is that it allows you to have specific audience and talk directly to them. A rhetorical situation stems from this, allowing you to talk to your specific audience about a certain issue and what that issue means for you as well as them. I found this super interesting because it is used by writers to get their audience to understand their point of view and see things from their argument and their issues… all without asking them to. Its like they read what you’re saying and because they are your audience they will just listen to you and feel empowered by it, its nuts and it’s all around us constantly. Now to tie this into my theory of writing I would say an audience can completely change and influence how you write. Since I am not a writer I would never choose an audience when I write because in all honestly, I don’t care about connecting with my audience. I write to express myself, and if you find yourself reading something I write, id hope you can feel my emotion.
People care about things. They care about what Author their book is coming from and they care about the genre they are reading and they care about the language is used in their Christian news feed and they care about the stance of their favorite celebrity and in general people are needy and annoying. Therefore these elements are necessary when talking to a specific audience and go to show you have to be careful when speaking. I hate this idea. As much as I want to just write this paper and get it over with so I can do all my other stuff that’s due I cannot ignore that I hate writing like this. It takes away expression to think about what terms you use and stance you portray. Out of all the terms that I have become closer with this semester the only one I can truly agree with and respect is purpose. Why are you writing something, who are you writing it for, is there a reason behind the words you say. It summarizes all of these things that authors use to target a certain audience, but instead puts the power back into the authors hands. It is your purpose. And unless your purpose is to connect with a certain audience or pass a certain paper you should never limit your writing to fit anyone’s agenda. Even if you are writing these things I still believe that if your purpose is achieved you can write in any coherent way you want.
My teacher has introduced me to many writings in which I had to reflect upon as homework and these writings have had more influence on my theory than any other part of the curriculum. It has shown me that there are groups of writers that just write for whoever wants to listen and to me that makes so much sense. They still have and use all of these writing strategies that we are required to learn about but they don’t really care if they use them or not, or after this long it is just second nature to them. Even as writers they have the freedom to leave all of the interpretation up to the reader. For all I know these people had no intention of using any of these writing strategies but we as readers can find them anyways. I love this as an idea because these writers could not care less about me or my class but still care about their work and what they put out. It is this caring about the work instead of the audience that I believe makes it so enjoyable to read and I think that if more people want to make interesting or actually good writing they should follow that style.
Now I’m not saying that you don’t need English class and you can just write whatever you want and not expect to get a bad grade. Trust me I’ve done that and an F is not something I like to see. but it is important to remember your reason for writing. If you are handing in an assignment to a teacher you just met maybe don’t sound like an idiot who curses too much, but instead write as if it is the first time you are experiencing something and be truly invested in what you are writing about and I’m sure you will get a good grade. I can be sure of this because if you actually care about your writing and how you sound in it then it will immediately make it 2x better. And 2×50 is 100 amiright haha.
The final part of my theory of writing is that no matter who you are, how much you care, or don’t, how much time, effort, money, focus spent on something there are going to be people who don’t like what you give them. Even if you complete every task and answer every question they ask and write up to, if not beyond the minimum you can just be told its wrong and that is that. But don’t let it discourage you. There are assholes everywhere in this apparently endlessly expansive world and their only purpose is to shit on whoever they want. These people might not even be good at writing but they might never make a mistake so in their head they are so much better than you. They might always make mistakes and you might hate them for that but its out of your power. These people are inevitable and if you are going to write, or produce, or do your assignment I’d say to just do your best and love what you do because that’s all you have in this world and you can’t let someone take that from you.
