Creative Writing vs. Research Writing- My Personal Thoughts

It is very obvious that creative writings and research writings are different. In my case, as I’m sure in many others, an incredibly different approach was taken for the two projects. Not only was the approach different, but so were the actual writings. Where one allowed for creativity and exploration of media files, the other needed structure and quality information to back up arguments. Where one was a collaborative writing that allowed the class to work together, the other was an independent work that didn’t allow for much assistance from others (although some was used in peer reviewing). The two projects were incredibly different and led me in very different directions from the very beginning, not just in the way I executed the works but also in the way I thought about and prepared to complete the tasks.

                Creative writing is something that I personally have never really been that big of a fan of. I am not that imaginative when it comes to writing my own stories, and I never have been. This is something I knew ahead of time, so it was a relief for me that we were working in groups for this project. To try to spike my creativity, I made sure to read the story ahead of time to get an idea of what it was about and start coming up with ideas that I would later discuss with my group. Luckily, we were all on the same page in our opinions of the story and how the best way to conclude it would be. Because this was a creative writing project that used the integration of digital media of different types (audio, video, and pictures) it was easier to get creative and the writing went fairly quickly. Also, knowing that the writing was only one page long was nice but also somewhat difficult because my group was responsible for concluding the story where the previous 6 pages had all been used to build up suspense and detail and now we only had one page to conclude it in. I personally think that the end result was fairly good considering our somewhat difficult task, and because it was a creative writing project it gave us the freedom to add some silly details that would get the job done but also be entertaining to the reader. Overall, this project was more fun than anything else and allowed us to create something that didn’t need to be taken seriously, so it was easy to spit out crazy ideas and actually have them work.

                The research paper, however, was a completely different case. I have always liked research papers much better than creative writings because I find it much easier to create a realistic argument and find real facts to back it up. I began by picking a text that I had already read so that I could really concentrate on the details this time around of reading. I also made sure that the text was something interesting that dealt with many issues so that I would have enough information to talk about. When looking for my secondary sources, I looked for sources that would help to support my argument, obviously, but I also looked for texts that were different enough from each other that the information would not get repetitive. In my case, I used one source full of research specifically relating to my topic and a second source full of statistics that would back up my topic. As for the actual writing, this varied greatly from the way we wrote the digital story. All of our research papers have been written in small increments but I also tried to break it down more than just the increments of the due dates. I tried to write a few paragraphs at one time then come back a few days later to write a bit more and a final time to revise and finish it before turning it in. I tried not to write the entire thing at once because I knew that for me, my arguments would be easier to understand and would be better developed if I came back to reread and revise them. Also, due to a longer length requirement, it was easier for me to be able to cover all the topics that I wished to cover using all the details that I wanted to. And because this was a formal writing and I didn’t feel that I had to be super creative, it was easier for me personally to write the paper and not worry that something I said would be refuted for being nonsensical.

                Overall, the writings were very different. The approach I took towards them was very different, the style that was used was very different, and the overall products of the projects were very different. However, I personally find this to be a good thing. I know that for me, being forced to write something creatively, even though I don’t like to do it, is good for me and forces me to think outside of the box. It also actually helps with my research writings I think because it encourages me to develop arguments that may also be outside of the box, but that may be very interesting and beneficial to the paper. Although the two projects were very different from each other and very different approaches were used for them, ultimately it was still writing that made me think and both final products are interesting, just in their own ways.