As said by Dr. Kyburz, three important concepts to remember when writing are:
1. Claims require evidence.
2. Meaning has context.
3. Writing is revision.
In my still juvenile stage of writing, I can say that both concept's number one and three have been practiced and reinforced all throughout high school and my first year of college. However, that's not to say that I have spent extensive time revising all of my writing assignments and surely have yet to excel backing up claims with sufficient and relevant evidence. From my experience, I've found that many people, including myself, are hesitant or dislike going back and revising their work. This may not apply to everyone, but I feel this fairly common disinterest in revising stems from both the time it takes to construct a complete paper and being assigned topics that don't have greater applications outside of that assignment or class. I don't know how many of you reading this know of or have read the book The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, but when 10th grade me had to write an extensive essay over this, I can almost promise you I spent no time revising nor did I ever truly connect with that paper (if you read the book, you'd probably understand why).
Image Source: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.goodreads.com%2Fbook%2Fshow%2F18114322-the-grapes-of-wrath&psig=AOvVaw3oWfM2y3J0ovN5qQsJBN0l&ust=1630184010004000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAsQjRxqFwoTCJjLp8CL0vICFQAAAAAdAAAAABAR
As time progresses though and I continue to write, I've been allowed more freedom to write over topics that hold some sort of internal interest. Revising has become a valuable tool for me and is something I practice after all of my writing assignments now. I never truly realized how bad my first drafts usually were until I started revising my writing assignments regularly.
Evidence is key in writing today; people love to see statistics, graphs, numbers, and other visual forms that ultimately enhance writing. Part of me enjoys the research part of some assignments because of the amount of information that I learn, but another part of me dislikes searching for hours for information that is seemingly endless. Nonetheless, there is almost no telling how much of that information we receive and consume is accurate. Statistics can come from anywhere, and while we use them to our advantage to make our point's more clear and solidified, it's still vitally important to know the context of where the information was gathered and produced and to not spread misinformation on our behalf.
Image Source: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tylervigen.com%2Fspurious-correlations&psig=AOvVaw1GJjGE_Ink94QHLVcKI6TZ&ust=1630185072382000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAsQjRxqFwoTCLDiyO6O0vICFQAAAAAdAAAAABAI
As my professor from another class recently explained to me, correlation does not always mean causation. If one just saw that chart somewhere, it may look evident that there is some sort of link between people who drowned in a swimming pool and the amount of power generated by nuclear power plants. That's where the second concept of writing comes into play. This concept of "meaning has context" has not directly been taught to me up until this semester, but I think it's something I've been conscious of and is an idea that has been indirectly implemented throughout most of our lives. With a little deep dive, the context of that chart comes from a website that intentionally displays these charts with wild correlations such as the one shown above. It's almost like satire, in that they show these wildly unrelating statistics to draw to attention that not all correlation means causation. Context is supposed to bring some form of clarity to the message, and through that clarity the meaning of the paper is enhanced. I'm not a master of any of these concepts and I don't know of anyone who really is, however, I understand it's important to keep practicing these concepts to ultimately improve my own writing skills which is my end all be all goal at the end of this class.
