When reading through my peers blogs I cam across a post, written by my friend Alex, comparing his writing style to a wave. He does this by explaining that when writing, he starts with a lot and then narrows his essay down to whats really important to his main point afterwards. While this is probably that smart way to go about writing, Alex’s post was somewhat surprising to me primarily because I’m the exact opposite.
When I write I tend to start out with the basic information and then, when I finish the essay, I go back and add in all the minor details that make my argument and also make me reach the page requirement. By doing this, I am essentially broadening and/or expanding on the claims made in my essay – the exact opposite of Alex.
While I personally believe that either way can produce clear and effective writing, I do think that my way can make it more challenging to have good structure/flow because I never know all of the information I’m going to include when outlining the paper.
I think from this point forward I may try Alex’s “wave” technique, at least with my outlining, because I think it could make my essays a little bit more focused and directed.
