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Twisha Patel

Professor Vazquez

ENC1101 Section 601

14 June 2021

“Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of Language.”

In the text “Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of Language” by Mike Rose,

the author draws reader attention by not only narrating about how writers write, get ideas (in

other words how they make plans) and do revision of their text, but also talks about what

elements keeps a writer’s mind blocked both mentally and physically for writing next sentence.

He also tells us the consequences when a write is not able to write the next statement. He states

that writer’s block occurs due to nervousness, dread or diffidence. He surveyed five students who

experienced writer’s block and found out that the thing which created writer’s block were the

rules, strategies and plans immersed into their heads. This obstructed their writing instead of

enhancing it. Rose also found out on the other hand that students who weren’t experiencing

writer’s block had an outline and were also open to change while framing process. Furthermore,

this article also focuses on revision and its importance.

Basically, for me first draft was the final draft, I used to make it perfect in one go itself.

What interfered me the most while making rough draft initially, was that I never was able to

openly write all my ideas. I just tried to make my first draft perfect instead of shitty. Originally, I

used to make my draft perfect by keeping in mind all the rules. I think that this is a little time-

consuming technique. These readings definitely changed my thinking for the same. Now for the

very first draft, I usually jot down my all ideas and for once not think about the rules and

strategies. This helped me to get an outline and help to me to think openly. This sometimes
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becomes imprecise but that’s okay for the first draft. Moreover, when we revise, we can easily

format that out. Talking about Major Project-2, I just wrote down whatever came to my mind and

completely forgot about the rules and strategies. This helped me to express my ideas

undisguisedly. I know that there might be some revision which I will have to make for my final

draft but I was happy that I was able to express my thoughts and could write freely for once. But

after that I’ll make sure that I revise my work properly, and make necessary changes.
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Works Cited

Rose, Mike. “Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of Language.” Writing about Writing, 4thed.,

edited by Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2019, pp. 158-172.

WORD COUNT:440 words