Today during my shadowing session we had a student who had written an essay but seemed very confused as to what she wanted to say. She was concerned about the "wordiness" of her essay overall and was struggling with organization. When the consultant tried to work on her introduction in order to clarify her thesis statement, she was bogged down by trying to make every word perfect. This was the first time that I've really seen the importance of just writing your thoughts down and then editing later.
Usually when I write a paper I will stumble over what I want to write in the essay and sentences can be quite wordy, but I try to make my sentences pretty clear from the beginning. She was really struggling with almost every word--she was worried about using the same word or the wrong word in context and kept second guessing herself about what she wanted to say. While the consultant had to pull all these ideas out of her, she finally began to realize at the end of the consultation that they were her own ideas. Sometimes it can be difficult for writers to express what they want to say and need some guidance. These were one of these consultations where it was useful for the writer because she had been struggling with what to say. After working on organization and the wordiness of her sentences, she has a good foundation to improve her essay.
Funny reading this post because I used to be (...am somewhat still am) that girl! I alwaysss struggled with my papers being too "wordy" and I always wanted to believe that they made sense to me and others just didn't understand. In reality, I have learned that when my writing isn't clear and concise, I actually most likely have NO idea what I'm really trying to say. Therefore I know I must try and backtrack in order to really organize my basic, main arguments/ideas. Also, sometimes I realize that I just need to refamiliarize myself with whatever the topic is that I am writing about.
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