Now… I did this just the way the book said to—I did a 5-minute fast write—I didn’t really worry about “being eloquent, grammatical, or even very smart.” So I handwrote it first and this is exactly the way I wrote it… kind of sloppy.
1) It’s okay to say things the instructor might disagree with.
2) You can use your own experiences and observations as evidence.
3) You can use your own writing voice.
4) You’re always supposed to make an argument.
5) You have to know your thesis before you start.
Step One
The first four are ones I do believe and that’s probably why I chose them. The last one I don’t believe.
Maybe it’s not what everyone thinks, but I think disagreeing with the teacher is alright. To me, the teacher is just another person with their own opinions like everyone else. I don’t think the teacher should discriminate against students because of the student’s opinion. I don’t think that’s the teacher’s place.
I have had many experiences—just like anyone else—that I think people can learn from, just like I have. So using personal stories and experiences is fine by me as long as the paper isn’t super formal or only research based. But I guess it is a RESEARCH paper, so duh... I don’t know… But personal experiences are research. Wow that’s confusing; I’ll still say it’s fine by me.
Writing in a voice of your own is very important to me. It’s like “Why bother?” if you can’t add a certain flare to your work. Why work that hard to write a 10 page paper if it’ll just turn out to be mundane and borderline annoying. By annoying, I mean it’s hard to read a paper’s words when all your head is absorbing is “blah, blah, blah, blah, blah”. That happens to me a lot and it’s because there is nothing exciting or interesting about it—that bothers me.
When the word “argument” is used, I think “This is where I stand on this particular subject.” And to me that’s what a research paper is—Maybe I’m wrong, I’ve never really written one in a class setting. And really, I believe a better more interesting paper is written when there is moderate to strong opposition.
The last one , I believe a lot of people take to heart. I’ve always had a problem with thesis statements. I think they are ignorant to do before you start. To me, writing a paper is a journey, and I never know where it’s going to go. So taking the time to form the perfect thesis statement, then writing the rest of the paper solely based on one paragraph seems ridiculous. I just like to get all my ideas out there and start writing whatever feels right—and really, where I start may ultimately be the conclusion. I do thesis statements last whenever possible.
Step Two
I chose: People are entitled to their own opinions, and no one opinion is better than another.
This one is pretty personal to me. My relatives and I disagree on lots of subjects. I’m a pretty righteous person, so when I believe something, it’s not easily change or altered. Actually, I disagree with lots of different people, and some of the things that come out of people’s mouths disgust me. So you’re entitled to your own opinion, but I think that when two different people have two different opinions, one is usually more accurate most of the time. I think a lot of people tend to live in some fantasy land they’ve created in their head…I call it denial. With all of that said, if you like Kenny G and I don’t, then I guess that all depends on how you are wired. But, hey, I kept myself a loophole—I said most of the time. I also think people’s fears of certain situations, objects or people get in the way of reality too. Just like I detest arachnids—mainly spiders—there will always be someone (I actually know someone) to be totally in love with their Chilean blue toed tarantula. But maybe if I’d let my guard down I could see that they are awesome animals. But really, I don’t think so...
