Don't let the rules of writing stop you from writing something great

The article, “Ten Ways to Think about Writing: Metaphoric Musings for College Writing Students” by E. Shelley Reid, mentions and explains the ten metaphors that come with writing. This article is essential for college students to read as writing in college can become tedious and aggravating at times because of the many rules we were taught growing up in grade school.

Writing in college can become difficult and unenjoyable once you consider all of the rules you have to follow in order to convince your professor you know what you are doing and to also get a good grade. Things can also become more difficult when you have to write about something that simply does not pique your interest. E.Shelley Reid brought up the 3 border principles when discussing her first methodical way of writing and one of the 3 was to write what you know about and something you are passionate about. This is very important because writing something that you have interest in makes the assignment so much easier to think about and process.

With me being a writer as a student and with the media team I can agree with this, certain rules while writing an article can leave me with brain fog sometimes, and certain rules when it comes to writing for an assignment also leave me wondering how can i make this work. The last thing a writer wants to do is to make a paragraph too long or short which can turn the reader off. While reading the article E.Shelley Reid, gives great advice on how writers can make their paragraphs just right when it comes to the audience that is gonna read the paper.

Reid mentions that a short paragraph “can waste a reader’s energy”, and her advice for that is to know your audience and work around that. That advice makes a lot of sense because if your paragraph is too long you can fall into the trap of repeating yourself. For paragraphs it makes the reader more at ease when the paper is organized, each paragraph has its own topics and supportive details and evidence.

E.Shelley Reid did a great job when it came to giving college students advice on writing, as writing in college can be intimidating due to us being taught so many writing rules during grade school. The methods she provides allows the college writer to relax and too not take the writing rules to seriously. In future writing assignments, I will use multiple metaphors of hers as I feel like it would ease my mind when writing an assignment.