Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of Language

Rose, Mike. "Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of Language." Writing about Writing: A College Reader. Comp. Elizabeth Wardle and Comp. Doug Downs. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin's, 2011. 236-50. Print. Summary: In this writing piece Mike Rose is trying to make the point that writing rules and planning strategies frequently hinder, instead of facilitate, the writing process. Rose presents two different versions of what he perceives to be rules and plans, which have roots in cognitive psychology, called heuristics and algorithms. He defines heuristics as being rules of thumb and algorithms as being rules that create specific results. Rose goes into basically say that it is these rules that shape plans; what he stated as including criteria to determine successful goalattainment, as well, include feedback processes. Rose presents a study that helps to support his thesis which includes the usage of the writing dictators, rules and plans. In this study Rose uses ten undergraduate writing students, touching base with their writing styles, their definitions of rules and plans, and how they are applied. Five students get writers block, which Rose notes as having partially to do with their writing processes, since these students are following the bad advice and rules given to them by previous instructor. The other five non-blocked students are employing more liberal approaches given to them by previous instructors including dropping a rule if its conflicts with what is sensible. Rose comes to conclusion that the blocked students are taking heuristics and confusing them to be algorithms; this further elaborates upon the idea that rules can indeed hinder a writers ability to write rather than facilitate it. Analysis:

2.6.12 Brenton Spiro ENC 1101 1230-120PM Section 0004

Owing to the fact that our writing teachers are the ones that give us the rules that we are supposed to apply to our writing we are often compelled to use them without question, but Rose makes me question the approaches concerning rules given to me by my teachers. Like Stephen Fry, he talks about how writing should be the result of more liberal rules and plans, and that strict adherence to a certain way of writing should be negotiable. Its true that often I will be stuck trying to find a decent grabber, or presenting a decent thesis in my first paragraph, but the claims Rose is making in his piece are allowing for me to chip away at my conventional approach and consider employing more practical and relaxed writing strategies that will assist my writing rather than impede it.