Sunday, June 10, 2012

Looking back...to look forward.

Yesterday was a long day. I hadn't slept well the night before because I was full of anxiety about the final draft of my paper for my English class. I spent the day trying to tweak my paper and find a way to bring all my ideas into a cohesive order before my grading conference at 2:45 pm. I finished right in the nick of time and ran from the library to the meeting with Holly, Anna, and Dr. Burton. As we read each others' papers, I felt like my paper, even with all the work I put into it, was a shadow of what it needed to be. After the grading conference finished, I stumbled out of the JFSB and walked heavily to my car. I had tried to put my heart and soul into my paper. It was the final product of all the research I had been doing this spring. And in the end, I felt that it didn't manifest the raw intensity of the thoughts I had been sharing with my friends and acquaintances through social media.

For me, the transition from thinking strictly about research through the use of social media and then having to compose a traditional paper was a bit difficult. Blogging, tweeting, and commenting using Google+ allowed me to relax and get out my thoughts in a raw way that reflected exactly what I was thinking. I could sit and just type away and ideas would flow like a river from my mind. When I started working on my traditional research paper, I felt that the flow of inspiration was crimped. Writer's block set in like a sickness. My way of thinking felt restricted because I had to turn my ideas that were stylistically informal and the many discussions that I had with people and put them into a formal paper. Traditional writing is also much more stressful than writing blog posts and tweets because a definite form is expected for your paper. Ideas have to gel the entire way through. I feel there is more freedom in blogging and other forms of social media because a definite form is not expected. 

I feel that writing through the medium of social media and also writing traditionally both have their place. I have learned so much interacting with others to find research for my paper. It made my work feel like something living rather than something static. I loved getting feed back from people like my friend Matt at Deseret News. The concept of researching people rather than just topics also helped me view research in a very different light as opposed to just going to the library and looking up articles and books. Writing the traditional paper made me think more deeply about the topic I was writing on and helped me form a solid argument. The social media created a way I could network with others and get their opinions on my thoughts.  I will definitely never approach a research the same way as I have in the past. 

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