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Brian Schiff
24 November 2014
Paper 3 Final Draft
My Blog Process
Writing is a complicated word in that it is sometimes hard to define. Writing is not just a
five paragraph essay or a short answer question on a test, it is much more. Writing can exist in
many different forms or genres. In Revisualizing Composition by Jeff Grabill, a report about the
findings of a study distributed to first year college students, many different genres are listed. Just
some examples of writing were texting, email, lecture notes, and status message updates (728).
What is interesting is that people dont typically recognize these genres as writing. Due to the
fact that there are so many different genres and contexts, there are many different writing
processes. Every writer tends to have a different writing process that can either help or hurt them
depending on their pre-set rules or habits. In a study of writers block by Mike Rose, he
interviewed multiple students and was able to find patterns among their writing methods. He saw
that students that set strict rules or guidelines for themselves had greater difficulty writing versus
those that had less strict guidelines (540). I have written many essays throughout my high school
career and previously assumed that other activities such as texting and status message updates
were not writing. One type of writing that I have had very little experience with is writing blogs.
Most writing I have taken part in has typically been a five paragraph essay or a short answer
question in a controlled environment with time constraints. The purpose of the study is to
observe my writing process in writing a genre that I am inexperienced with.
Methods

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In order to study my own writing processes, I used a journal to record my methods of
planning, writing, and revision for my blog. The blog I wrote about was one of the readings that I
did not write a response for previously. My blog was about Late Nights, Last Rites, and the RainSlick Road to Self-Destruction by Thomas Osborne. I will also use multiple articles from the
Writing About Writing book as well as rhetorical strategies in observing and analyzing my
writing methods. This study lasted over the course of three days.
Results
My first blog post was on Late Nights, Last Rites, and the Rain-Slick Road to SelfDestruction by Thomas Osborne. This blog was fun to write as I found the contents of this article
to be very relatable. I read this article in the first floor common room in Hercules 109 as I tend to
do for all of my writing assignments. It is a little room with two windows, some couches, and a
TV. In a way, working in that room makes me feel like Im in a cage or jail cell as I am always
isolated. I dont really like being in that room because I feel trapped. However, I like to be alone
when I write and being in a room that I dont like motivates me to finish my blogs faster. As a
writer I struggle adjusting to different environments as I do not deal well with noise and other
people as I am trying to think. To start my blog, I read over the article three times. I dont take
notes or annotations as I feel that reading over an article multiple times is far more beneficial.
Following the reading, I spent a ludicrous amount of time sitting in that little room doing what
seemed like nothing. Most people who pass by the common room while I am working probably
think I am insane. The reason? I spend a majority of those hours just thinking and planning out
what Im going to write. When I plan, I dont make charts or models on paper, I dont review
notes, or make outlines. I just sit in place and think with music playing softly off of my laptop in
the background. For this blog, it took me three hours of sitting like a statue on the fluffy beige

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couch listening to rock music before I decided what specifically I was going to write about. I
thought about myself as the rhetor and how I was going to communicate my message to the my
audience. Even after I figured out what I was going to write, I didnt even do it that day. I ended
up getting invited to eat at a Pei Wei with my friends and didnt start writing until the next day.
The writing itself did not take nearly as long as my mental planning took. When I write
my blogs, they never feel the touch of paper or pencil as all of them are typed on my Lenovo
laptop. When I sat down in the common room for my second day of writing, I surprised myself.
As I wrote my blog, it was almost disturbing how excited I got writing it. I enjoyed writing that
blog as every word that I typed out felt fluid yet organized at the same time. Not only did I enjoy
writing the blog, but the speed at which I wrote the blog astounded me. It only took me one hour
of writing to finish my first draft. My first draft was two paragraphs long where in the first
paragraph I summarized the article and the second was where I gave my thoughts on it. Satisfied
with what I had accomplished, I celebrated by going to the gym right before closing at 11:30 at
night.
When I got back from my workout, I began my slow revision process. My revision
process for the blog consisted of a second rough draft and a final draft. For each I used a
procedure that had been taught to me previously at the UCF writing center. I used a read aloud
method where I would read my blog out loud and make changes where words or phrases sounded
wrong. I was writing my second draft when unfortunately for me, one of my friends, Bernardin,
had taken root in the common room with his laptop and textbooks. Since I cant work well in an
environment with friends nearby to distract me, I had to move to a different location to work. I
ended up sitting at a table in the courtyard outside of my building to continue writing.
Unfortunately, it was 2:30 in the morning and I could no longer focus on revising my draft. It

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was far too cold outside and I was too tired to continue. On my third day following a slightly
productive World Religions class, I sat down in the common room which was once again empty
and finished my rough draft and final draft within one hour and thirty minutes.
Discussion of Findings
With the information I have gathered through observation, I am able to make multiple
claims. I found that while writing this blog, I fell victim to the writers block that many writers
are accustomed to. The reason for this is that I had multiple rules that held me back. When I pan
a blog, my main concern is always developing a purpose to appeal to my audience. If my blog
does not properly addresss my I had similar rules as the non-blockers did in Rigid Rules,
Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of Language by Mike Rose (540). Another claim I can make is
that I wrote like an experienced writer in that a majority of my writing process was devoted to
planning and revision. Similar to what Donald M. Murray did as his writing process was studied
in Decisions and Revisions: The Planning Strategies of a Publishing Writer by Carol
Berkenkotter, the majority of time spent on this blog was on the planning process. Of course my
methods of revision were not nearly as eccentric as Murrays as he constantly would stop his
activities throughout the day to write notes in a daybook (596). Sadly, with my mental planning,
many of the ideas I came up with become lost over time. Another observation I made was that
my method of revision somewhat quick unlike Thomas Osbornes in Late Nights, Last Rites, and
the Rain-Slick Road to Self-Destruction. In his paper, he talks about his struggle as a
perfectionist who simply cant throw his eccentrically written essays away. With my writing, I
am similar to him in that I am also a perfectionist and strive to write the best papers I can. Unlike
him, I am not afraid to occasionally throw away a bad paper. When I first began writing this
blog, at first, I wondered why it was so easy. The realization I came to was that everything

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Thomas talked about in his article from his rambling to his obsession with perfect grammar to his
incessant desire to have his friend approve of his essay was relatable to me (647-65).
Having written very few blogs up until this semester, I can say that it is one of my
favorite genres to write. It is just like any paper in that you address an audience with a purpose
and a niche to fill within a context. What makes blogs different for me is that they are far less
complicated and are more fun to write. It is especially fun when you can connect yourself with
the reading. When I wrote my blog about Thomas Osbornes article, I could really hear my own
voice in it. As Donald M. Murray says in All Writing is Autobiography, I have my own peculiar
way of looking at the world and my own way of using language to communicate what I see
(67).

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Works Cited
Berkenkotter, Carol. "Decisions and Revisions: The Planning Strategies of a Publishing Writer."
Writing About Writing: A College Reader. 2nd ed. Boston: Bedford/St.Martins, 2. 596.
Print.
Grabill, Jeff. "Revisualizing Composition: Mapping the Writing Lives of First-Year College
Students." Writing About Writing: A College Reader. 2nd ed. Boston:
Bedford/St.Martins, 2011. 728. Print.
Osborne, Thomas. "Late Nights, Last Rites, and the Rain-Slick Road to Self-Destruction."
Writing About Writing: A College Reader. 2nd ed. Boston: Bedford/St.Martins, 2011.
647-65. Print.
Rose, Mike. "Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of Language: A Cognitivist Analysis
of Writer's Block." Writing About Writing: A College Reader. 2nd ed. Boston:
Bedford/St.Martins, 2011. 540. Print.