Written Communication

     Writing has always been a passion of mine, so much so, that my mother still to this day encourages me to write a book one day. While I'm grateful for her optimism, I truthfully enjoyed writing as a form of expression and liked to write about things that I'm passionate and curious about. I used to think I couldn't write about "real things" in school, until I started exploring research papers. Now to the average person, writing a research paper probably sounds as fun as watching paint on a wall dry, but it was an opportunity to choose a challenging or interesting topic and learn all about it. This brings me to one of my favorite papers I've written to this date. My artifact was written during my very first semester at SPCC in English 111, Writing and Inquiry in the Fall of 2017. This assignment was our last written project of the semester and was a research paper on a topic of our choosing...so naturally, I methodically thought through the topic of choice. The topic of this paper I chose to write about was based on the hookup culture in today’s modern society and its long-term effects on men and women. I was a little bit older than some of my fellow classmates, and had some life experiences too under my belt, so one of the themes I saw firsthand and in my friend group was how toxic the hookup culture is in our society, and how negatively it affects us. I was very nervous to write about this topic as I already was the oldest in the room, and felt like I stuck out as a sore thumb sitting in the front row every class, but I felt passionate about the topic and knew that there was no way I could not write this paper now, I already did a ton of research on the topic and was intrigued so there was no turning back!  Again at the expense of sounding more nerdy, I couldn't stop researching, it was truly my favorite part (I know how it sounds, and no, no one paid me to say that). There is so much information out there that just needed to be brought to the surface, and what better place to share this research paper, then with a group of peers who may be experiencing some of these issues too. I worked on this paper for about a month, because I knew I couldn't just throw facts at my peers to make them understand, I had to capture the audience by relating to them and showing them the evidence through my words. I needed to write and communicate in a way that would resonate and persuade them to see the points I was making. I originally started with free writing as a brainstorming method to narrow down the topics I would write about. From there, I broke down each major topic I wanted to cover, and outlined it to ensure a process that would flow and be easy to read for the audience. I revised it every couple of days and went through two peer editing sessions, and a professor editing session before delivering my final product. 

 

     The goal for the written communication objective is for the learner to exchange ideas and information with others using written text in a manner effective and appropriate for the intended audience. I met the goals I set out for myself but also went through some ups and downs as well in the process. I was very passionate about this subject, which naturally led to my achilles heel, and resulted in my strength and my weakness being one of the same. I was so passionate about it, that I worked tirelessly on it by analyzing the paper at all angles, doing more research, and re-writing statements in new ways I had not before. On the flip side, because I was so passionate about it, I kept editing it to try to be perfect. I had to learn that no paper is perfect and because I had set up a process and started this paper well in advance, I need to trust the process, which in the end helped me to feel very confident about the end result. I had two goals for this skill, the first goal was to effectively write a research paper and communicate a strong idea to my audience. I accomplished this with this paper, as the feedback I received from peers led me to believe that they could relate to my paper! If they hadn't experienced similar situations, they had a friend that did and it was eye opening for them to see it in this perspective! I also was told that it shocked some people to learn about the statistics and facts as they had no idea how big the issue has grown, so I believe I impacted and communicated the topic thoroughly. My second goal was to ensure that I used unbiased sources when writing my papers. I had never given much thought to this before in High School but the credibility and the buy-in from the audience will come when a writer presents unbiased sources and facts. This proved to be a little challenging at the beginning of my research, but because I set out time to thoroughly research through the library and the ProQuest database, I found many scholarly journals, and dissertations to help build my case. 

 

 

   This paper is probably why my mom wants me to write a book, as I am the proudest of this paper, out of everything I have written in my career as a student and even a working professional. I took a vulnerable step in writing about something that could be looked at as distasteful or scandalous and wrote about it in an educational way as it truly is a problem that is continuously evolving. I am not only proud of the work that I put into it, but that the professor at the time, Dr. Kirby gave me such great feedback and advised me that I should try to publish my work. I think at a later time, I may just do that, and I think I may continue the research for a dissertation one day as well. This paper and the goals I was able to accomplish have given me the courage to keep writing about hard topics that are important and prevalent but maybe not talked about much.