When first learning to write, teachers showed me how to write the alphabet first in print, then in cursive, on paper. This taught me to be a very careful writer. I had to think a lot about what I was going to write before I wrote it, especially before I had to write my final draft in ink. Later, teachers expected us to turn in final drafts in a printout from a computer, but our rough drafts could still be hand-written. A lot like Steven Johnson in his article, “How the Computer Changed My Writing,” I did not realize that a computer could aid my writing process, because I only saw it as something I would use at the very end of the writing process.
Using a computer is now a very important part of my writing process, from beginning to end. In his article, Johnson concludes that the computer changed everything about the way he wrote. Like him, the more I use the computer for my writing assignments, the more I realize this is true for me, too. Because of the way I learned to write, I used to be a nervous and tentative writer. I spent so much time working out what I should say in a topic sentence that I forgot all of my other ideas by the time I perfected that first sentence. However, today I worry less about the perfection of my rough draft sentences and more about content. I know that I can use spell check, grammar check, proofread, and other editing tools to easily correct mistakes in the rough draft. Using the computer to write makes me much more aware of the information I am presenting to my readers instead of worrying a lot about the grammar or format of the writing.
I spend much more time writing these days than I realized before considering all of the mediums where writing is possible. Technology has made me and many of my peers “writers.” Not only do I write for my course work, but I also write emails, on social networks, in response to blog posts, in text and instant messages, and probably many other things I will recall at 3am when I wake up to get a glass of water. Johnson writes about the change in his mental process from when he had to do his writing with pen and paper to when he began writing with a computer, writing that with the computer, his thinking and writing process began to overlap. This is the case for me as well. In order to keep up with the greater pace of computer and electronic communication, I must analyze and write almost simultaneously. The amount of writing I do and the analysis skills I have developed add to my comfort with writing.
Learning to write is a process that continues for me, because not only I am growing as a person, but also because technology that affects writing is changing rapidly. The chance to write more in-depth pieces for coursework helps me to understand the progress I have made and to see in what areas I need to focus to improve my writing. I am glad to be working on the skill of writing in a time when using computers as part of the writing process is easy for almost anyone to do. With computers, I see myself as a writer; I may not have seen myself this way otherwise.
