J1 Max Dietz

Writing is a verb. It is also a noun. This word can even function as an adjective in some cases. In short, “writing” as a term is not very definitive and requires significant context to interpret, as do the ideas writing represents. A vague word deserves and equally vague definition. An adequate one might be, “the attempt to persuade.” I do not like anything that gives writing too explicit a definition. It is too easy to disprove. Does writing have a purpose? Sometimes. Not always. Does writing always persuade? No.

Writing will always attempt to persuade. Without fail this is true although it will not often succeed.

Terms:

1. Persuasion: The manipulation of a person that causes him/her to think, feel, or behave in a certain manner. This manipulation can either be explicit (i.e. Paine’s Common Sense convincing you that the revolution was a good idea) or implicit (i.e. a picture a little kid drew that make you smile).

2. Author: The person writing the text. Examining the author of a text is, in my experience, nearly essential in understanding the work as a whole. In many cases, such as the pleasure reading of a fiction novel, the work as a whole does not need to be completely understood. An author can also be an entity inside the writing. A unique phenomenon can be observed when examining religious texts. The author of the work is described in the work itself and nowhere else. Therefore the work wrote itself.

3. Form: If words were water, form would be the glass. Form is the shape a text takes. General examples of form are the novel, poem, or essay. Form can be further broken down into more and more specific increments by genre, style, tone, and even color of ink. This, in my opinion, is an almost all encompassing term because it is simply the physical shape an idea takes.

4. Media: The final shape of the form. A medium can be written electronically, printed, or on television.

5. Writers Block: An unfortunate condition that makes it impossible to put pen to paper and causes a 400-word assignment to take two hours to write when it would normally take 10 minutes. Common symptoms are excessive procrastination and the sudden desire to clean every inch of your house. When finally pushing through a bad case of writers block, the work may end up being highly esoteric, extremely sarcastic, and just plain bad.