When I hear the word “writing,” my mind immediately goes towards a form of expression. You can compare a piece of writing to a piece of artwork and see just how alike these two types of mediums are. Most of the time, writing is subjective which allows the author to be flexible with how and what they want to write. The author is able to convey whatever is on their mind onto pen and paper easily when something may be too difficult to communicate orally. However, there are still some restrictions of writing when it comes to things like formatting and grammar. A good piece of writing has organization and correct punctuation. Although this is true, it is the author’s use of creativity and imagination that determines the outcome of an expressive, well written work of literature.

    Even before entering this class, I have always thought of writing as a place of comfort where I can make a note of all my inner thoughts. I can write something down that would sound good in my mind, but if it did not meet my expectations after I had read it, would not be the end of the world. The best thing about writing is that you can edit it over and over again, as many times as you would like. Compared to speaking out loud, it is something that can be changed before having it presented as a final piece of work. I enjoy writing because of how much freedom is involved and I am able to jot down all the rambling thoughts in my head even if it is not well organized at first. It allows for my inner imagination to be let loose of and I would try my best to provide the most accurate imagery into the reader’s mind so that they can get the same picture that I have in mine. Yet, when college rolled around, I had a different mindset. All I thought of was many research pages with numerous amount of pages having to be typed with no amount of individuality included at all. Only factual information was needed to have the perfect college paper; that was my impression of what college would be like. Fortunately, I was able to have the real college experience when entering freshman composition. Throughout the semester, we have had four writing assignments, including this one with a source-based, inquiry-based research, composition in two genres, and theory of writing essay. When being assigned the source-based essay, it was my first time having exposure to a research essay. I can still remember my highschool Engish teacher nagging about having the heading be only single spaced and that contractions were definitely not allowed in essays. During highschool, my class had focused more on argumentative essays rather than an essay with only objective information, but I was blind to see that these two are actually quite similar. With an argumentative essay, you have to choose a side to defend and back up with facts while research essays have a topic question that you need to explore on and interpret with your own opinions. This was when I found out that it was okay to put my own opinion into a research paper. They are not just a bunch of bland statistics and data put into one paper. I always thought of them as a textbook page, but they are much more than that. My general topic for these essays was food waste. It really is a controversial subject because many people do not even food waste as a social issue, but instead just an everyday action that happens and exists. The source-based essay was what gave me the foundation of composting a research essay, involving all the rhetorical terms. It let me dive deeper into these terms as they were factors that were essential in a piece of writing. I began to realize just how important they were when writing my inquiry-based essay. My topic of food waste was very broad until I had chosen my question of, “How does the government deal with food waste in the United States?” There are the certainties of the government’s actions, but I wanted to focus on the audience of this topic. It was not about the government, but more about how their actions and efforts affected people that were involved. From business owners to food insecure families, there was a wide range of people that my inquiry-based research paper could appeal to. I wanted to provide as many perspectives as I could so that those involved could have a relatable stance to either be hopeful for or indifferent towards. If business owners knew that many other business owners had to waste hundreds of dollars in order to compost and save only a bit of food, it would make them feel infuriated and maybe worry that they could be in the same shoes one day if laws in their local town are created. The same goes for insecure families. If they were to be acknowledged that the government is being lazy and not even considering this detrimental issue to not only the Earth, but its people, I would bet that they would be frustrated. Vice versa, if they knew about the abundant amount of programs and companies that support food waste prevention, they would know where to go to for support and even pay it back to those companies. As I mentioned previously about my stance, I had wanted the audience to know that the author’s position was to be straight-forward and aggressive so they would know how serious I was. 

    My composition in two genres was enjoyable for me as well. That was when I had unleashed my expressiveness of the creation of two genres of a poem and a poster, inspired by my topic of food waste. I had wanted my rhetorical situations to shine the most through these two genres. That was the goal and message that I wanted to communicate to the audience in order for them to get the hint. The initial reason I had created a poem for one of my genres was the ability to be able to have a fun play on words while expressing a serious conflict. Hopefully, that would have made the readers read this poem more than once when seeing the combination of rhymes and negative effects of food waste. The same goes for the creation of my poster. I wanted to leave a shocking experience that would leave a lingering feeling on the audience when seeing the comparison of the same exact fruits with different exterior appearances, but the same interior appearances. I feel as if my writing relies on what the audience will think and how they will view it as because they are what decides your writing as not necessarily bad or good, but either boring or impactful. I believe even if the reader did not enjoy your piece of writing, as long as they are influenced, you have done a good job letting your writing be stuck into one’s head.    Again, I do not believe that punctuation or grammar is the sole reason that makes or breaks your writing. It is how you display your writing out there to the audience that matters and of course your creativity is what determines that. I have to keep that in my mind constantly; both in the present and future in order to not let dull writing overtake me. I now know that just scratching the surface is not what it takes to be a good writer, but to provide a thorough explanation involving your own thoughts to wander about as well.