Last Thursday, I attended a seminar about writing with Magdala, Sara and Sam. I was interested in this event, because of large amount of writing that is required in college. Apart from exams, essays and reports are probably the tool most used to evaluate student performance in a class. Personally, I sometimes find written assignments challenging. It may be because of the topic, or the length required for the assignment. Regardless, I felt that it would be interesting to hear how other people approach their writing or written assignments.

Something that stood out to me was that the purpose of any written assignment is to put across a point, regardless of whether is was a lab report or an essay about a book. While this seems intuitive, it was something that I had not actively thought of before. Sometimes, while planning or writing a long essay, I feel like I tend to think of ways that I could increase the size of the paper (By adding more examples or writing in-depth explanations). Additionally, if I have a rubric to consult, my essay becomes more a “checklist” that discusses points in the rubric. If I think back to assignments that I had written, I feel like any arguments or discussions would have been more convincing if I had maintained focus or connected the sub points back to my main point(s).

Another thing was to find the time of day and place where you write the best or are more comfortable writing. Personally, I like writing in my room because it’s quiet. Also, I tend to do most of my writing in the afternoon and evening, after classes. A popular place discussed for writing was places with ambient noise, like coffee shops or certain parts of a library. Overall, I feel like this is something that varies from individual to individual. While I see the benefits of writing/studying in a coffee shop, I feel like I would likely get distracted so I tend to stick to my room or the quiet parts of a library.
Overall, the event was very engaging. It was interesting to listen to different viewpoints and experiences with writing. It’ll definitely be useful for my next essay or lab report.