Questions and Answers

So Doug asked us to do some question responses instead of reading responses and analyses. I'm all about it!

1.  How did you used to see, and how do you now see, the relationship between writing and following rules? Do you associate rules more with one kind of writing or another, or not really think much about rules at all, or think about rules in all your writing? (Again, try to give me, if you can, how you thought about this when you entered college, and how you think about it now, and if your thinking hasn't changed, that's fine, just say so.) 

I would have to say that upon entering college I thought that almost every type of writing had a certain structure it was supposed to be following. I thought that there were certain grammar and writing rules that dictated the way a student was/is expected to be writing. For years and years we are taught to write five paragraph essays that include an introduction, 3 body paragraphs that describe to the reader everything we want to say, and then a conclusion that sums it all up. "It is Molly and I . . ." they said. "Passive voice is wrong" they said. "Write for your audience," they said. Those are just some of the "rules" of writing that we are given as young writers. When in fact, the case is not so black and white. It isn't always "Molly and I . . ." sometimes, in fact, it actually is grammatically correct to say "Molly and me." Passive voice is not wrong, has it's place and function in writing and is necessary for a writer to emphasize certain parts of a sentence (thanks LING 238 for teaching me that my use of passive voice is purposeful and meaningful!)  Also, you don't always need to write for your audience, sometimes you need to write for you and then cater to your audience later.

Upon entering college and delving more deeply into my studies of writing, I have come to learn that the rules of writing are dictated more by personal style, professor style, and the genre that you are working in. I have found that in my writing in college I have been given more freedom to break the "rules" that had been imposed on me throughout the years (I mean just look at the idea of using blogs as writing assignments, I think my AP teachers would have a heart attack if they could see me using blogs to respond to readings!) I've also noticed that we college students are more highly encouraged to put ourselves and our own voice into our writing. It seems that even when doing technical writing, it is important that the writer's voice is still present even if they're bias should not be. That is something that I never felt encouraged to do in my high school years, unless it was a more creative writing sort of piece.

Now, I would say that I don't necessarily "think" about the rules of writing any sort of piece, I feel that I've simply developed a pretty strong understanding for how genres function and how to write within them without consciously thinking about how the rules of that genre dictate the writing.

2. What did you and do you think is the role of personal opinion in writing? Is there writing that should be more personal and other that shouldn't be? Is there writing where opinion isn't allowed? Is there writing that should be as purely objective as possible, and if so, can/should that writing also be personal?

I think that opinion has it's place in writing, even when it isn't supposed to. Even when we say we are writing an objective, un-biased piece of writing, our own thoughts and opinions will inevitably leak into the writing. There is no way that humans can be completely objective, and we cannot help but put bias into our writing even if it isn't on purpose.

Not only do opinions leak into our writing, but there are times and places in which opinions are necessary in writing. When we write memoir, editorials, and opinion pieces, obviously the author's thoughts and opinions are essential to the piece. Yet, there are also times and places in which opinions do not at all belong in writing. When reporting on the findings of a study or the outcomes of an event, it is important that personal opinion is held out of the writing as much as possible. 

I also find that even though some writing shouldn't have opinion in it, doesn't mean it can't be personal writing. If a writer is passionate about a topic, their voice is going to slip into the piece and make it feel more personal, even if it remains as objective as possible. 

3. Are there places or scenes of writing that you associate more with the personal and opinion-based writing, and other scenes you associate more with objective and impersonal writing? If so, what are differences in those scenes -- what are they associated with?

As with the previous question, I see more personal and opinion-based writing to be reserved for pieces of writing that function as personal and opinionated: memoirs, editorials, opinion articles. These are places in which the author's thoughts, opinions, and experiences should be prevalent in the writing. I see more "impersonal" writing as things that function as a source of information: manuals, research papers/articles, lab reports, news reports. These are places in which facts are to be presented and not opinions. Again, this isn't to say that these types of writing are totally devoid of human element, but rather they are typically places that I see as more impersonal pieces of writing.