Jeffrey Fernandez

Professor Britton
Writing 2,
March 22, 2023

My Relationship with Writing

As cliche as it may sound, I have a love-hate relationship with writing. On one hand, I

enjoy taking time out of my day to journal to myself to recollect my thoughts, text friends, and

write up intriguing posts and prompts for my small business. On the other hand, I loathe writing

when having to use it in an academic setting. Writing extensive essays on subjects I have no

interest in or multiple-page analyses on a book I did not care to read, most all of it seemed

pointless to me. Reflecting on the duality of my relationship with writing, I had no problem with

the act of writing itself, exercising my usage of vocabulary and wording to make the message of

my writing put my thoughts into words. Where my relationship varied with writing was in how I

applied it. I wondered throughout high school why I couldn't exercise and improve my writing

on prompts that were of personal interest to mine, as opposed to ones concerning books and

stories written several decades ago, maybe then I would enjoy it. So with that, it came to my

surprise that my Writing 2 course took an alternative approach to teaching writing than I had

been previously conditioned to. Stepping away from writing long essays about books and exerts

and working to expanding my foundation of what I understood to be writing rather than just

continuing to use what I already know.

With Writing Project 1, we were tasked to take an academic article of our choice and

translate the information present within it into a new genre. A unique assignment for me as It

was the first time I was given near complete freedom in selecting what I wanted to write about,

already piquing my interest far more than past assignments. In preparing for the project, we

learned about the importance of understanding the genre we are working with and how it would

affect our writing and presentation by reading texts such as Lisa Bickmore’s Genre in the wild

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and Kerry Dirks Navigating Genre. Bickmore helps explain genre to be the “word we use when

we want to classify things and to note the similarities and differences between kinds of writing,”

provides us with a useful example of how “a scientist [who has] gathered enough experimental

data will probably write some sort of report of the findings … The scientist doesn’t have to

figure out whether she’ll write a report or if she’d rather write a song lyric,” (Bickmore 2016).

Durk helps further establish our understanding of recognizing whether or not we are effectively

using a genre, explaining that we have used and recognized genres for a long time and that “[we]

can quite accurately predict how they function rhetorically; your joke should generate a laugh,

your email should elicit a response, and your updated Facebook status should generate comments

from your online friends.” Durk shows us that proper usage of a genre under its conventions

should elicit a desired response. For my translation, I decided to summarize my academic article

of choice into a Tik Tok, requiring me to learn the common conventions of Tik Tok as a genre

and understand what it is the goal of my translation would be. I aimed to take a complex article

about protein consumption and summarize its contents in a short video consisting of

multiple-segmented videos that build off of one another. In translation, I faced the difficulties of

condensing the contents of the article into the script I would use to record the Tik Tok. It was

essential that I make the script and video short enough to still abide by the conventions of the tik

tok as it is well known for being quick, stimulating, informative videos, and I was able to.

Having to turn the academic article into a script helped me further understand the importance of

how you write according to your genre, and looking at my own work from the past, had me

reflecting on which genres of writing suited me best. Perhaps the genre of journaling and writing

philosophical pieces worked better with my way of writing than book analysis. The work I

conducted in WP1 gave me an overall newfound respect for those who specialize in their own

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distinct genres of writing. Blog posting, Instagram captions, Billboard signs, and many other

genres of writing exist with their own conventions.

Beyond genre interpretation, Writing 2 as a class gave me a unique insight into how to

directly strengthen my writing for future assignments and potential careers. For future

assignments, getting over the hump of writer's block that I so often struggled with was addressed

in our reading of Lamott’s Shitty First Drafts. My innate desire for perfection on the first try

leaves me in a stage of paralysis when it comes to starting writing. Lamott notes on this direct

issue I have, saying: “Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start

somewhere. Start by getting something— anything—down on paper,”(Lamont 25). Kyle D.

Stedman’s Annoying ways people use sources also Helped me reflect on one of my biggest

weaknesses with academic writing, citations. The multiple issues and fixes he gives helped me

move on in utilizing citations in a more effective manner for my future assignments. Finally,

WP2 called upon us to transform the information present in multiple different academic articles

concerning writing into a conversation between the authors upon a commonly disputed subject.

To prepare for the creation of the conversation, we read exerts such as Jones’ Finding a good

argument, which gave us many cues of what establishes an argument to be a strong one. Being

able to learn how to strengthen my arguments with the usage of Ethos Logos and Pathos along

with the application of inductive and deductive reasoning are lessons I am going to be able to

bring outside of college to strengthen my career as a potential consultant.

The Writing 2 course provided me with many useful skills and insight that I will be able

to carry with me throughout the rest of my academic career as an undergrad at UCSB and

beyond, as it did for many people. But for myself, writing 2 rearranged the way I perceive my

prior relationship with writing. I no longer approach the topic of writing as a singular entity that I

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refuse to work with at times. Writing 2 has helped me break down writing into many other

subcategories that I can work and dig into, helping me clarify my strengths, weaknesses,

questions, and prior perceptions of what writing consisted of.

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 References

1. Bickmore, Lisa. “Genre in the Wild: Understanding Genre within Rhetorical

(Eco)Systems.” Open English SLCC, Open English @ SLCC, 1 Aug. 2016,
pressbooks.pub/openenglishatslcc/chapter/genre-in-the-wild-understanding-genre-within
-rhetorical-ecosystems/.
2. Jones, Rebecca. Finding the Good Argument Or Why Bother Logic. 2010. Open English
SLCC, Open English @ SLCC, 1 Aug. 2016,
3. Lamott, Anne. Shitty First Drafts. New York Pantheon, 1994.
4. Stedman, Kyle. Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing. Parlor Press, 2020.