I agree with what Elizabeth Wardle has to say in You Can’t Teach Writing “In General.” She talks about how it would be impossible to write anything without a purpose. I have always been taught to write with a purpose, whether it is to persuade or inform readers. I would not know where to begin if I did not know what I was writing for. Whenever I write, I always know what my goal is. She also points out that there are certain fields that require different ways of writing. A journalist and a poet would definitely have different writing styles. This is why writing has to be taught for specific purposes. Either way, it is important that when we write, we are analyzing the situation, asking questions and identifying problems. In Looking For Trouble: Finding Your Way Into a Writing Assignment by Catherine Savini, she goes over the key components to writing an essay.
When I write my essays I usually start by asking a question and then answering that question throughout my essay. However, Savini mentions that it is important to know the right questions to ask. There are some questions that may lead to a completely unrelated topic or it may lead you down the wrong path. I also tend to identify problems in my essay yet, I rarely offer any solutions. Even though, neither of readings mention anything about this, I feel like it is something that I need to improve. Both of these articles succeed in informing students on how to improve their writing. Wardle’s article was more familiar to me seeing how I completely agree with her. Savini’s article was new to me due to the fact that the concepts that she brought up were unheard of before today. They are both equally important and I will keep these readings in mind for my future essays.
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