Talicol 1

Alexis Talicol
ENC 1101
19 November 2014
Paper 3 Final Draft
I Would Rather Watch Paint Dry
I have been in an English Composition class now for about four months. I have paid
attention to the way all of my class mates write and noticed how different we get an assignment
done. One person makes multiple drafts and chooses the best one. I did not know people actually
had the time to do that. Another student prefers to list their ideas. Students like me create
PowerPoints, one paragraph being one slide. These are just some of the differences I have
noticed. What I do not know is their actual writing processes. I have no idea how long it takes
them, if they get distracted by their phones, and what goes through their head throughout the
whole process.
Not a Statistic
Most of my assignments from my English Composition course revolve around our
textbook Writing about Writing. While skimming through articles from the textbook, I have
learned of obstacles on why students may struggle during the writing process and how we all go
through those similar situations. In one of the articles called Writing, Technology, and Teens,
we look at a few statistics involving students incorporating writing and new technology. One of
the facts that the author, Amanda Lenhart, states is that 93% of teens say that they write for
their own pleasure.(711) I really have to disagree with this statement because every teenager I
know do not even want to write when we have to. If we dislike writing for academic purposes,
why would we want to do it for fun? Lenhart probably asked a certain group of students who

Talicol 2

actually enjoy writing, but they do not represent the majority of teenagers nowadays. If this
statement is true, I am the 7% that do not write for pleasure. Like most students, I find writing so
unbearably boring that everything else that we find bland on any other day is the automatically
most interesting thing.
My Writing Process
While observing my peers, some of my habits and tendencies stood out as well. I like to
compete with my class mates on building up the better essay. I want to sound more intelligent. I
have noticed that I like to use a stronger vocabulary, avoiding as much baby words as I can.
For example, using the word bountiful instead of many or a lot. I rarely get writers
block. When I understand a situation, or scenario I am given fairly well, ideas start flowing and I
do not stop writing until I have explained my point entirely. I only make one draft and just revise
it heavily, using my peers criticism to my advantage. And lastly, I never fail to get distracted.
That is my biggest obstacle when it comes to completing an assignment. Everything that usually
does not appeal to me becomes the most entertaining when I am writing. I do not really enjoy
writing. I would rather clean my entire house. My writing process, as of now, works well enough
for me to get assignments turned in, but I am looking for ways I can improve and decrease the
amount of time I spend working on papers. I decided to do an experiment to see how long it
takes me to finish writing in a personal journal I keep, and to record what distracts me and for
how long.
Method
Like I mentioned earlier, my worst problem with my writing process is that everything
that does not have to do with writing distracts me. My mind is always somewhere else. I wanted
to see just how long it would have taken me to actually finish an assignment, without my mind

Talicol 3

wandering off. The way I observed my writing process was to write down what I did for one
week, three different times (3 weeks.) I did this at the end of each week on a Sunday night
throughout the month of November: the 2nd, the 9th, and the 16th. I timed how long it took to
finish writing my entries, distractions and all, what distracted me, and the amount of time that
took up. I never knew how long I got sidetracked while working on an assignment so what better
way to find out than doing an experiment?
What I Discovered
While doing the experiment, I wrote journal entries of what I did for a week on three
different Sundays. The first trial was on November 2nd. The total amount of time it took me to
finish was one hour and forty-eight minutes. I got bored at one point, about 30 minutes into
writing, and started checking my friends posts on Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat on my
phone for twenty-six minutes. The second trial was on November 9th. The total amount of time it
took for to finish those entries was 2 hours and two minutes. Sometimes when I am bored I eat
for fun so I decided to cook up some macaroni and watch videos on YouTube at the same time.
That took me forty-seven minutes before restarting the entries. The last trial was on November
16th. It took two hours and fourteen minutes to complete those entries. I wanted to actually focus
on writing the entries this time, but this time my family randomly FaceTimed me. They always
call me whenever I am busy. Our conversation lasted fifty-one minutes before I finished my
entries. After collecting this data, I organized it my data all into a table.

Trial

Date Entries
were Written

Time to
Complete

Distraction

Time Distracted

11/2

1 hour, 48
minutes

Cellphone:
Twitter,
Instagram,
Snapchat

26 minutes

Talicol 4

11/9

2 hours, 2
minutes

Cooking, eating,
YouTube

47 minutes

11/16

2 hours, 14
minutes

Cellphone:
FaceTime

51 minutes

Analysis
After observing this information I gathered, I now realized that what would have taken
me a little over an hour was extended to two hours because of how sidetracked I got. The whole
time, I was more interested in technology than writing my entries. My cellphone was the biggest
problem because of Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and Facetime. In the second trial, I wanted to
cook, eat, and watch YouTube videos on my laptop more. I keep the personal journal, but I use it
more as a reference. I do not like to write in it for leisure. Writing is very boring, and from my
observations, I do more activities I find entertaining than writing. The data collected from this
experiment has disproven the statement 93% of teens say that they write for their own
pleasure, already mentioned. I have proven that I am not included in this statistic considered
how boring I find writing. I believe I speak for almost all students when I say if we do not want
to write for class, we do not want to write for pleasure. As I was writing this paper, I spent
almost five hours doing other tasks. I ate around three times, checked my phone maybe ten
times, played games three times, and watched television the entire time. I became distracted
writing about me getting easily distracted.
The Wrap-Up
By viewing my little experiment, I clearly cannot focus on something as boring as
writing. I find it ironic that as much as I do not like writing, I still keep a personal journal. It is
only used as a reference to keep track of what I do. I do not incorporate my feelings into it so
therefore, there is no passion in what is written in there. Becoming sidetracked could be a huge

Talicol 5

problem in writing later on when I have multiple assignments due, but I still choose to
procrastinate on them. This is the one obstacle I plan to overcome in order to improve my writing
process. I like to compete with my class mates on who can create the better essay. As much I
want to disprove Amanda Lenharts statement because I do not enjoy writing, writing for
pleasure might be beneficial to my academic writing. If I were to write more often, it would
become easier each time, getting all my ideas down and organizing paragraphs to perfection. The
other solution to improving my writing process is that if I were to turn off all my devices,
television and especially my cell phone, and eat before writing, I would have even more time to
focus, plan, revise, and edit my text into an impressive essay. Writing this essay, I am trying to
complete it the best I can. I am aiming for a strong vocabulary, avoiding using a word multiple
times. I am organizing each paragraph and sentence into something the reader can understand.
Eventually I will use my peers criticism to revise my writing into something better. The only
problem at the moment is that my television is tuned into MTV and the most interesting part of
the story has my mind elsewhere. I only hope this essay turned out better than what my class
mates came up with, distraction and all.

Works Cited
Wardle, Elizabeth, Douglas Downs. Writing about Writing A College Reader 2nd Edition.
Bedford/St. Martin's. 2014. Paperback