By Joey Yearous-Algozin
Recently in the writing center, I was working with a student who was in the early stages of a research assignment. The student asked me what seemed like, at the time, a simple question: “What if you can’t find an article that agrees with your thesis?” Initially, I responded that this wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. One possibility was that they’d found a blind spot in the current research and, in doing so, a place from which they could make their argument. In my own work as a writer, this kind of room can be hard to come by.
In talking with them further, however, I realized something about a struggle I often have with my own writing. Namely, that my dedication to the first idea I have about a particular topic or assignment can sometimes be the biggest obstacle to overcome. Many times, it can keep me from writing at all, and I get stuck perpetually in the research stage.
Thinking about Carin’s prior post about the need to give oneself the permission to write, working with this student reminded me that it’s also necessary to give oneself the permission to change one’s mind during the writing process. Perhaps it’s this permission that enables the student to draft a new and stronger thesis.
In the early stages of drafting, a working thesis is really more like a hypothesis. It’s an initial sense of how the different elements – your ideas, sources and skills as a writer – will react and form a sustained argument. This requires a dedication to the writing process and not a dedication to the thesis. In fact, one of the great things about writing on a computer is how easy it is to rearrange and delete material.
This dedication to process also speaks to a basic tenet I’ve heard echoed throughout the writing center since joining the staff last semester: You have to allow yourself to write a bad first draft before you can even think of having a polished final draft. This is true for a couple of reasons. First, you can’t edit your writing if you don’t have any writing to edit. This seems obvious, but can be really hard to remember at times.
Second, the thinking that happens away from the page, while extremely useful, needs to be translated to the page at some point. It is during this act of translation that change occurs. Often, I’ve found that an idea that excited me before I sat down to write drops away, while other ideas emerge in its place. It is during these moments in which my thinking needs to be rearranged on the page that the writing process is truly working.
Published March 30, 2015
