Self-analyzing and Quirky Goodness

I think I may be too critical about my blog posts. I push aside many ideas simply because they are not fully formulated, and it is becoming increasingly counter-productive as I try to think of new post topics every week. I know these sites are intended to serve as a place for us to continuously develop our thoughts, so I am going to try to free myself from this inner resistance. Maybe I’ll write in support of an idea one day and against it the next, but at least I’ll be getting my thoughts down in text. 

Anyway, now I move on to a semi-related topic: the self-analyzing this course seems to stimulate. Kari, I know you’ve mentioned that you’ve grown more and more conscious of personal habits and traits, and you are definitely not alone. I am starting to see little quirks in my writing and writing process as well as other random aspects of my personality that I previously didn’t notice. Most of these ‘little quirks’ relate to working in the writing center in some way or another, so I might as well address them here.

Little Quirk #1: when I write a paper, I often spend hours perfecting the structure of each sentence. I will write one line, read it a few times, then erase it and rewrite it entirely until I reach a satisfactory result. This habit is likely a product of my extreme appreciation for the aural, artistic quality of language and the effects various word choices have on the intended meaning of a sentence. (No, ‘extreme appreciation’ is not an exaggeration. I won't even begin to describe how much I adore speeches simply because these traits play such a significant role for them.) However, while this focus on the flow of a piece from one sentence to the next has its benefits, I think it may occasionally cause me to overlook other aspects of academic writing that need equal attention. There haven’t been many repetitive occurrences of neglect of any certain aspects yet, but I do recall two papers for which I did not fully evaluate how accurately my thesis reflected my argument as a whole. Still, it's definitely something for me to keep in mind when working on future papers. Blogging about this may not be of much help to anyone other than me, but I think it is important to critically analyze personal habits, especially unconscious ones, because awareness enables improvement.

 Well, I believe that concludes the first of my little quirk analyses, but I assure you there will be more coming eventually.

By the way, quirk is quite a quirky word.