Joseph Newman Blog

     The microtheme we’re writing in class will be the first time that I'm writing a microtheme. In school, I haven’t really written much, if anything, other than standard five paragraph essays and argumentative essays, so this is a completely new experience for me. I'm much more used to writing argumentative essays, so trying to stick to the criteria of a microtheme has been a challenge. it's much more difficult to leave all my points open ended and up for interpretation than declare a stance as fact. I often found that the sentence I was trying to write was either too stanced or couldn’t properly convey what I wanted to say. I also found myself frequently resorting to writing in questions, which can’t be included. Despite only being a single page long, it takes, or at least feels like it takes as much effort as if it were three pages. When writing drafts for the microtheme I was having a hard time focusing on one top and sometimes lost my thesis entirely. After a half h...

    When I write papers, I usually write the bulk of it at once. Most of the time I find myself starting with notes, and outline, and potential topics, and then going straight to an almost final draft. Because I normally work like this, it's much harder for me to work on something a little bit at a time, and peer review or work checkpoints become more of a hassle than helpful. I also tend to procrastinate a lot, so combining both these things leaves me writing most of my papers a few days before they are due. I still value and need someone else to look at my paper, but that usually involves me messaging my parents to edit it at 11pm the night before it's due. Even with this post, I’m writing it a few hours before midnight on Sunday because I couldn't convince myself to start it sooner. In addition to my questionable time management skills, I also like to wait until I have a clear idea in my head of the criteria for the assignment I'm doing. Over the course of the microt...