Writing is a form of communication to someone that’s far away from oneself through a letter or a text message. Right now, I am communicating with you through this document in which I am trying to find and give writing a meaning based on my experiences and feelings when writing. But what is genuinely writing? For many, writing is just simply as it is. Typing in or handwriting a couple of words. I find writing is as it seems and more: is the story behind the process and the transformation of those words into physical reactions. Writing is a combination of letters that then become words. Terms that later will become into sentences and so on. But what is writing, for you, for me, for all of us? If we look at it from the top view, writing is merely expressing our concerns on paper. To put our feelings out in the world without the need to say a single word. That is writing. Is expressing our sentiments in a beautiful form, a form that can be interpreted in millions of ways. Writing is so much better than speaking. Speaking gives us a voice, don’t get me wrong, but those words said at loud are momentaneous. The story can easily deviate from the original teller. It can cause different reactions depending on who tells the written information. It’s easier to alter the story, and once it’s changed, it will never have the same meaning again. However, everything that said like a speech; it comes first from writing. The laws, certificates, agreements, everything is based on writing. Writing is like a key that can open many doors, but it all depends on how one gives it meaning and purpose, how it’s transformed and communicated.

While I write this assignment, I am in the living room listening to Urbano Latino music with just one soft light on and the noise of the rain falling as it hits the window. I find myself in a situation of difficulties because there is so much in my mind that doesn’t come out in a way that I can express myself as I want to. Just right now (seriously), I came to the realization that that is a struggle I go through every day of my life as well as for a written assignment as in my personal life.  I can’t find it easy to write down my ideas in the way that I want to when I want to. But I did find a solution to this problem. The answer was provided at the beginning of my first semester in college when my English professor introduced the crucial elements that compose writing. Audience, genre, medium, stance, tone, purpose, author, and language— Rhetorical terms. These rhetorical terms have remodeled my writing style into a type of writing that is more informative, detailed, and precise. These elements have totally changed my writing process to be more organized and well developed. Because rhetorical terms are an essential rule of writing, it must be taught before going to college. Personally speaking, if I had known the importance of rhetorical terms in high school and all the value it can give to my writing, I would had been a better writer right now. For any writing assignment that I had to do in my years of high school, my writing style was vague and ordinary. However, whether I did or did not know how to write, I still gave my writing the same emotional touch, which has become, for me, my mark in writing.

In my years of writing, I don’t think I ever wrote an awful essay, it might have had a couple of mistakes and things to improve, but all in all, I always write something that I am satisfied with and that I feel a connection with. When I write, I like to get emotionally involved with the topic because I feel if I do, it will make my argument stronger. However, I don’t make my writing personally emotional, if not general in a way that my audience feels identified with.

In my senior year of high school, I had to write a cartoon easy for my English class (1), which I found extremely worthless to analyze how cartoons depicts a certain behavior or belief and then analyze how the ideas depicted in the cartoons are incorporated in society as a standard, stereotype, or as an idea of what reality should be. A couple of months after, I had to write an essay for a scientific research internship (2). The prompt for this essay was, “what would be my superpower and how could I apply that superpower to medical technology”. Before writing these essays or any other I don’t do an outline or brainstorm to develop the essay. When I write, I like to let the ideas flow and think about what I am thinking. I also like to do a lot of research about the topic that way I have more ideas of what I should be talking about and have a bigger idea of what the essay should compose.

“Our brains are being flushed with all these makeup products so much, that we are forgetting to embrace our natural beauty. Tiana is a princess from Disney who taught women that beauty isn’t always about the physical or material. It’s about the inside and you as a person and that’s what makes us beautiful. We are all unique. That we have to a dream, have a passion. Get married to a charming man and have a happy ever after ending shouldn’t be the most desired dream of a woman. We as women have to dream bigger than what society tells us what we are capable of. We never notice the beauty because we are too busy trying to create it. In order to burst those standards of beauty that society has created and we have followed, we first have to accept ourselves the way we are and not let anything bring us down because us, women, are an empowerment to the world.”

“Diseases, especially cancer, can become a strong burden to the health system because treating a cancer patient it is extremely expensive, which makes the family go bankrupt. My superpower is the ability to put an end to cancer. To eradicate the agony of millions of people in the world of which their immune system does not have enough strength to fight the enemy that is invading their lives. My kryptonite is that I can only be in one place at a time.”

When I was writing the essay for the scientific research (example 2), I traveled to my childhood. When I was a child, like 7 years old, I said that when I grow up, I want to be a scientist or doctor and find a cure for cancer. That was my biggest dream. I dreamt with that victory. But you know, life decisions change as well as the writing process does. Anyways, I found an interest for the essay (cancer), did a lot of research on current studies, combined all the information, and did something with it. At the end of that process, I wasn’t satisfied with the result so I went back. Well, I actually stressed out, gave up, got inspired again, and then, finished it. In that aspect and many more, writing and science are the same. You start with an idea, investigate, make something with the information gathered, and just keep working until you achieve the goal and that’s all writing is about. It’s a process, a long one, but what matters at the end is how good you feel about your work and how you see yourself in it. And that’s how I felt with that essay. That is my proudest work of all. How it turned out, the little elements that gave it a sparkled that lighted the entire world, how well I targeted my audience without even knowing. It was an outstanding piece of work for me compared to how was writing for the sciences was at the time.

I few months before I saw the results of my hard work, I got a couple of words from a professor. He said to me, “Your writing is quite fun to read. You have a good sense of how language works, which it’s rhythms and quirks. Please keep writing!”. That comment really made my future. I felt so proud of me at the moment that I showed my professor’s comment to all my teachers and they agreed with it. I was so so so happy and proud of me that you can’t even imagine. That was the moment that I decided to write, to actually write something that is worth it, that people would feel like it wasn’t a waste of their time. I love to receive positive constructive feedback or even negative. It helps me grow as a person and as writer. It helps me improve and strengthen my weaknesses and be the best I can be in everything and everywhere.