Benefits of Writing

My role as a writer has been of expressing a language with letters and symbols, as described by Coulmas (2003). Writing gives me all ascribable respects from hordes of intellectual readers that frankly appreciate the content that I write convincingly. On the other hand, I am corrected by the people who genuinely detect where I need to improve. I associate writing with several satisfying benefits, which have only been possible because of the opportunities I have as a writer. I write in school, on my own and on friends' blogs, as well as at work. Good written communication is still imperative. In all the opportunities I have to write, I realize that writing is a strong form of communication. Through writing, I communicate with my peers, family members, and professors via e-mail, I comment on blogs, and I write learning materials for my juniors.

If communication is at all important, then writing is very crucial (Windschuttle, 1999). As a matter of fact, writing is an essential constituent of my education, livelihood, and rudimentary functionality in society – these comprise of some of the opportunities I have to write. Fairly, it is apparent that there are two main ways to communicate – through writing and talking. Through writing, I easily communicate with my parents and siblings when I am in school. Sometimes my life as a student is too busy and the only time I have to stay in touch with my parents is late at night when they are asleep, far away from my school. Since I cannot disturb them by calling, I write them emails at night and they read them when they wake up.

Another related opportunity to write is to inform. Whether it is my parents, siblings, peers or a wider audience, I use writing as a tool to report on what is happening. I use writing to inform my family about my health and academic life. I write text messages to friends informing them about traffic on the road. More importantly, I write to my professors informing them about the progress of my class assignments, and ask any related question if I am in doubt. Therefore, the busy academic life presents a big opportunity to write as a means of communication – it is discrete and remains fresh for a long time.

I am a very proud writer, but I am humble myself and I take challenges to writing on anything I am instructed to or I feel like writing about. However, what I feel about writing depends on what I am writing about. I find it natural to have varying feelings when writing on various topics and issues. There are moments when I do not have a choice on what to write about. For instance, when I do class assignments, I take assignments as opportunities to learn, whether I like the topic or not. At that moment, I am very confident. I do my best in writing to ensure that I do the assignments as required. I feel that academic writing is meant to make me better and so I work hard to learn the set skills. Even if a given writing task is complex, I feel like a winner when I finish by learning something new. In that sense, I feel that writing gives power that comes from knowledge.

So far, it is evident that writing is something I enjoy very much, regardless of the topic or circumstances, except when expressing bitter feelings. I experience the best feelings when I am writing about a subject I am most familiar with. That is the time I feel how proficient I am in expressing a particular incidence or feeling. When writing about what I know, my writing becomes easier and much more gratifying for me. I have such an opportunity mostly when I am blogging. I write jokes on blogs, review my cell phones, write about my best friends and how I think I should maintain them, post holidays pictures and interestingly caption them, and post questions anticipating reactions. Writing blogs, or simply blogging, makes me feel in control of thousands of intellectuals reading my experiences and thoughts from anywhere in the world. Therefore, writing gives me a feeling of fulfillment.

Initially, I used to feel really bad when criticized and laughed at for poor grammar and incorrect spellings. I used to feel very dummy and ashamed. This stopped when my teacher counseled and taught me to take it lightly and learn from every mistake I made. When I realized my errors reduced every time I presented in class, I became more confident and more proud of my writing, regardless of how bad it was – at least I knew I had time to improve. I believe it is because of that conviction that I now have valuable opportunities to write, sometimes for a living.

Regardless of how much I like writing, the art comes with its challenges as well as its best experiences. From the time I started writing coherently in primary school, I have experienced writing using several methods and styles. I have told stories, recounted my school experiences, and reported on class activities, not to mention completing assignments. My worst experience as a young writer occurred in grade four when I was asked to write an English composition about any topic I wished to. I realized it was a very special opportunity to retell through writing and story that my aunt had narrated to me a few weeks earlier. It was a very interesting, but touching story about how the Hutus and Tutsis engaged in a civil war in Rwanda.

In spite of the interesting and catchy way that I wrote the story, my language teacher declined to give me a grade accusing me of plagiarizing. Unfortunately, I was very young to understand what plagiarism was, and how I could avoid being a victim. The teacher then explained to me that I had directly paraphrased one of the books written about the Rwanda genocide, which I was not even aware of. I tried speaking to my teacher to make him understand that I had written the story without having knowledge of the said book, but he did not agree and consequently, denied me a grade. However, it turned to be a very good experience for me after hearing the teacher repeatedly say that the story was very well-written to be mine. I was happy because, in my heart, I knew the story was my own composition though retelling my aunt's. While the teacher did not give me a score, I was very happy and satisfied.