Vivian Thanh Ta

Discussion Forum Assignment

ENG 101

Jan. 14, 2006

Discussion Forum Assigment

1. Does the perception of "imposed" structure help or hinder the writing and creative process for you? Does the five paragraph essay structure format help or hinder your writing? Is it "good" or "bad?"

To me, I think that the five paragraph essay can help and hinder writing. It helps at some points because sometimes, you will have to write things that you either don’t know anything about, or you just don’t like it at all. At times like this, the structured essay helps me a lot. If the structured essay didn’t exist and I was writing about a topic that I don’t like or know nothing about, I would probably just scribble things down and have it go all over the place. On the contrary, if I use the structured essay format, I can write whatever I want and then organize into the paper later.

This format can also hinder writing when you have a lot of stuff to talk about. It almost feels like your being limited to write only five paragraphs when you can write ten more. It may also make your paper lose important ideas and messages to help the reader better understand it. When my group discussed this question during class, almost all of us thought that it could help us with writing because of its advantages. The group members were Dane, Nina, Matt, and Brenda. All of us agreed that it would help the writing process except for Matt.

Matt says that he doesn’t like the structured format because he likes to free-write and he has different thoughts about things. He quotes, “I like to be artistic about it.” Dane thought that the structure format helps you organize things and put thoughts together while Nina and Brenda thought that it was good because you can have a universal structure where everyone can understand it.

2. How would you write and what would your writing be like if written differently than the standard essay format, if written exactly as you wanted to write? (Does that mean your writing would be "unstructured" or wouldn't it have its own structure?). Do "structure" and "form" really exist or do we make them up to help the creative process?

For this question, our group had similar thoughts. Nina thought that if she could write anything she wanted, her writing would be everywhere. It wouldn’t make sense because they aren’t organized in the structure format. Dane had the same opinion, he said he has always used the structure format, and if he was to write differently from it, it would be hard to understand. My group only through half of the second question before the fire drill. In my opinion, if I was to write differently from the structure format, my writing wouldn’t make much sense either because I tend to jump around subjects.

3. What are some examples of creativity in writing that make either writing something or reading something an interesting or even exciting experience? What do you want to see more of in your fellow writers' work this quarter? What makes "good" writing?

A good and interesting paper requires a lot of elements. First of all, the paper has to make sense because no one wants to read anything they don’t understand. Second of all, the paper must not have any grammatical or misspelled words. If I was reading a paper that had tons of mistakes and misspelled words, I would spend so much time correcting it and trying to understand it that I would lose the interest to go on. Third of all, all of the information in the paper must flow and be organized because the reader would be easily confused if your paper jumps around subjects. Besides all of these elements, I think the most important thing to include in your paper is your voice and enthusiasm. If your paper sounds just like a history book, I can almost guarantee that the person that is reading it would immediately put it back down. If you don’t have enthusiasm, then your paper would be just like any other boring history book. “Good” writing, would include all of these elements.

4. The Basics vs. The Art of Writing: Discuss the difference between these two explanations of certain aspects of the art of writing in the English 101 Reader: which one works best for you and why? Which one most effectively explores ideas about the art of writing?

From my opinion, I think “The Basics” work best for me because it sort of gives me instructions to work from. I follow instructions better than doing things on my own, so I think “The Basics” would help me the most. It gives me examples to work from and to better improve my paper. Even though I like “The Basics” better, I still think that “The Art of Writing” effectively explores ideas and improves the writing. “The Art of Writing” helps make every sentence in the paper stronger and more effective so it can get to the reader in the way the author wanted.