Whenever someone writes, it always seems like an obstacle trying to implement the boundaries that teachers make. Some of these rules include when to use punctuations at the right time, using transitional sentences to make a nice flow for an essay, or not promoting any opinions and only facts (I hate this one), and many more. It’s all tiresome and obnoxious for those who want to write freely but are shackled to the ‘do’s and don’ts’ of writing, thankfully E. Shelly Reid’s “Ten Ways to Think about Writing: Metaphoric Musings for College Writing Student” makes this challenge a little bit easier. Although she is writing specifically to college students, I believe her article can be used as a guidance for anyone who loves to write in specific fields (i.e., creative writing, research writing, and compositional writing)
When I read Reid’s article, there were two rules she pointed out that made me think, “That’s the same idea I have too”. One of them was the ‘show don’t tell’ method where a writer must give descriptive details on what they’re writing about. Reid gave this funny example scenario where my friend is able to read my mind because they know me too well. However, if I were to lose them in a conversation to the point where they can’t understand me, how will the readers understand what I’m writing if I lose them- hence why giving context is key to good writing.
I feel this next rule is connected to the previous one because it revolves around giving context to the readers. In fact, this rule is mainly just giving a lot of contexts to the audience so that they will think the same way. Pretty much the gist of this means don’t provide little information since everyone will think differently even though it’s something simple. Reid gives a great example (and explains it better) with another scenario called “the little green ball” method. But don’t just read Reid’s article, in fact- Tiffani R. Ratliff made a similar post regarding this article, “10 Ways to think about Writing” they called it. I would recommend reading their post since we both share the same enjoyment on some of the rules E. Shelly Reid provides in the article, plus this blogger has a lot more to say about specific portions of the article that I haven’t really touched on.
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