Monday, May 14, 2007

Rewriting "A Major Event"



It was a pleasure to read your "Major Event" stories today.
Finding good ideas are the first step in writing.

Here is the link to our class notes:
http://www.sfu.ca/~smbarber/falclass.htm
And the blog question for today: When you have to write a paper, where do your ideas come from? Talk a bit about how you get started on a writing assignment. Describe your method or why methods don't work for you.

17 comments:

fakas said...

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Boris said...

Ideas for Paper

Question.
When you have to write a paper, where do your ideas come from? Talk a bit about how you get started on a writing assignment. Describe your “method” or why methods don’t work for you.

Answer.
I understood the question is focusing on how to start. Ideally I may be on the go, inspired, so first steps come naturally without an effort or special control. It is worse when the task is unclear or I do not like it. Then I may start procrastinating, postponing the start and be in trouble. Knowing that problem, I do special precautions. I try to start as soon as possible while I still remember something. If I have no ideas, I try to do some mechanical routines like creating the file or printing the title page. Hopefully it worms me up, and some ideas start coming from somewhere. From where do they come? The task starts finding some connection to my existing knowledge. It is very important to catch any positive move and to keep doing at least something in that direction. Very important source is conversation. I may talk to my classmate about the problem. Even though I may not technically get any ideas from him, but it animates my spirit. After that it is usually easier to proceed. I can also read wikipedia on the subject of assignment, some key words in its title. And hopefully I get involved more and more. It is important not to lose the weak initial ideas and to record them immediately, because they fly away. It helps to record all I know about it right after the class. If I do not understand it, it helps to formulate and write the questions. Still better is to share those questions with somebody. Even if I am talking to the wall. Of course, ideal chance is to have enlighted converser, who is intelligent, interesting and knowledgeable on the subject. I often hire tutors. I know quite well what kind of tutors are good for me. I like those sensitive in the conversation, those that can listen others. Those that always keep it be a dialog and never switch to monologues longer than half a minute. Once I record the ideas, I can do something else and then come back to the subject already digested some new information.

Boris Garbuzov,
bgarbuzo@sfu.ca
604-339-9964

JP said...

Question.
When you have to write a paper, where do your ideas come from? Talk a bit about how you get started on a writing assignment. Describe your “method” or why methods don’t work for you.

Answer.
Most of the ideas come from my own experience or someone else's experience. It depends on the title of the paper. I write my ideas on clear a piece of paper.Hence, It is brainstorm. Make ideas clear and organized. Then it's a lot easier to do writting. When I write a paragraph, I write small events to big events because it makes readers to focus on my paper and feel interesting.

jotie said...

When I write a paper, I do some research and I use past events in my life to also come up with ideas. I write a outline and ponder ideas. I ask people what would be good to write about. I think that I should work on writing outlines because then it makes it easy to write papers. I hope we do that in this class.

kirsten said...

question:When you have to write a paper, where do your ideas come from? Talk a bit about how you get started on a writing assignment. Describe your “method” or why methods don’t work for you.

When you have to write a paper, where do your ideas come from? Talk a bit about how you get started on a writing assignment. Describe your “method” or why methods don’t work for you. Answer:
I have never really had a problem thinking of ideas for a paper if I am given a general topic some times I have a hard time picking one topic. I have had many experiences in my life and I think that gives me an advantage because I can relate to a lot of topics with person experiences. I sometimes have to read the topic several times to pick an idea that best suits it. I also tend to write out a small version of my essay for instance I will write a topic sentence and then I will write the three main ideas and than three supporting points for each of those. It helps me to organize my thoughts and shows me that I have a strong topic and that way if I get stuck I look and I already have another point. It’s a good method and it has worked for me for many years.

JT said...
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JT said...

Question.
When you have to write a paper, where do your ideas come from? Talk a bit about how you get started on a writing assignment. Describe your “method” or why methods don’t work for you.


Ans:
I will think about what I am going to talk about in the paper and quickly jot down the ideas on a piece of paper. And put the ideas in a logical way to form an outline. Then I will add up the descriptions and supporting details on it later.

Albert said...

Actually i do not use any specfic methods such as conducting researches for writing an assignment. My ideas mostly comes from my intial respone and question to the topic of the essay.
The method i mostly use before writing an essay is brainstorming and collect set of ideas.

Derek said...

When I write a paper, my ideas usually from my experience, or the stories I have heard...I get started on my assignment by dividing into different categories, and then for each category I write down some main points or ideas.

Jonny said...
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Jonny said...

Definitely, the sooner the better I remember the subject, so I would start to write a paper as soon as possible. Sometime, I forgot the subject or get stuck at the beginning, I'd refer to documents available or do some researches online.
I often jot down ideas, keywords, or phrases that support my paper, then build up the writing from them.

Kevin said...

When I have to write a paper, I always flashback from the past. My ideas always comes from my own experience. I first brainstorm and then write the paragraph. I like this method, because my paragraph will be well organized and will flow well.

mike said...
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mike said...
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Peter said...

When I have to write a paper, my ideas usually come from my past memories. It often takes me a while to get started, however things will flow well after l wrote the first sentence. I found all the methods don't work for me, it just takes time.

mike said...

My ideas will mainly come from brainstorming. I started my writing
by write down some outlines that are relate to the topic. After, I would begin to write a first draft,than when I finish I wil do a grammar and structure check. If I think it is correct then I will begin to write the final draft. The method that doesn't work for me is when I need to rush a paper. I will always make mistake when I need to finishes the paper in a hurry. Therefore, I will try to prepare before I write any kind of eassy.

Edwardmah said...

When i write a essay or a simple paragraph, i get my ideas from what i saw and what i heard. The ideas i write in paper always have some sort of relations to me. When i start writing an assignment i will think about which style i could use and how to use it. However usually the style i thought about in the begining wont usually be the style i write. When i think of a style in the begining of the essay usually changes during my actual writing, usually based on my ideas from that time. So i dont i think i use any specific method for writing, and the word "method" never happen when i write my essay.