Final Reflective Essay During Finals week.

Reflection Essay on the Audience Factor


I remember the first day of Textual analysis and how I walked into it not knowing what to expect very well. As the professor went over the things we'd be doing, one thing in particular caught my attention and curiosity. When I heard about writing this blog and having to proofread other people in the class' blogs with the public viewing aspect, it made me a bit nervous. I strongly believe that the fact that this blog was public affected my writing in ways like content, how I posted on other people's blogs, and style as time went on.

The first time I sat down to type one of these blogs, I remember that I was not looking forward to it and hesitant on what to write and how. I believe I sat at my laptop for a good half hour trying to figure out how to write in a way that was "acceptable." To me, there were two main, separate audiences going to read and be judging my blog. The first was, of course, Professor Rouzie. I wanted to write well and in detail to show that I can understand things I read, keeping to the exact criteria given for the assignment. If I strayed at all and added an opinion or something, I felt like I was being to informal and would fail automatically. On the other hand, I was writing to the second audience of the class and I didn't want to seem like some sort of literary snob who has no personality. This also affected my commenting of other people's blogs. Every once in a while, I would find something I didn't agree with or found a poor points inside and I would want to just think to myself that I should tell them everything that was wrong. Usually though, I would end up just saying that it was good and I just saw it in another way. This is nothing new though since I have worried about things like this for years and has been a weakness of mine that has affected both writing and social aspects of my life. A goal of mine is to someday be rid of my constant worry and be free to be how I want to be. Even in something like a blog.

As time went on, I read what others had written in their blogs and saw that there was a lot of character in other people's blogs and that there was a way to really put personality into blogs without going overboard and still getting the point and content across. I finally found a strength of mine in being able to make a point and then also tell how I felt about it as well. This led to my blogs being more personable and easy to read while still informative. The more that time went on, the more I was able to make myself believe that there wasn't someone reading through my blogs and just ripping them to shreds in one way or another and, through this fact, I finally reached the point where my blogs started becoming more consistent in both content and style. I also found that I was able to comment more freely since I was finally able to convince myself that the other students weren't going to take every little comment I leave to heart and hate me forever. By the end, I was very happy to notice that a lot of my child-like fears about this blog had gone away quite a bit leaving me to write freer.

This blog being done across the quarter varied as time went on for me. I started out very strictly on what needed to be done and making them all as long as I could and, by the end, wrote more to the point and with my own style. The blog did actually help me in a way to remember the stories more by forcing me to really connect with them. If I had to give any sort of advice to anyone, I would tell them that the blogs are, in fact, their friend. A blog is a place to write how you feel and that is exactly what should be done in here, no matter what audience they imagine. To imagine someone reading with the main purpose being to make fun of the writing or critique it to death is a silly notion that can only hurt the writing.