My Writing Process | urwt-fall2014

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The Carolina Panther’s official forum was probably what jumpstarted my entire genre piece. I had been a member of this forum for a couple of years and knew several people that commented regularly so I figured it would be easy to get information from the members to start my research. I asked them a series of open ended questions in hopes of getting detailed responses from the forum members. From that, I would be able to extract the data relating to my topic without leading the members toward answers that I wanted. This gave my data a more non-biased basis.

I was welcomed with a multitude of responses from eager fans willing to explain their viewpoints on the different questions I asked. From this huge response I could see that I would need to carefully select other teams to target so that I would have enough time to process all the data.

This was the outline for my genre piece pertaining to fan identity with NFL teams. Being required to write an outline directed me to thinking hard about where I wanted to take my essay as well as how I could certify that I covered everything from my initial proposal. The outline assisted me with staying on topic and keeping the flow going through each section. Even with the outline, I would find myself rambling on about details that were unimportant to the topic despite them being important to me. I would then have to go back and delete pointless portions of the essay. I can’t imagine how awful and opinionated the final product would have been without the outline guiding me along the way.

Here, I was trying to determine who I would be writing my genre piece for. I decided that I wanted to target it to all the fans who were kind enough to provide me with their insight when I asked them the questions for my research. While they were my main target, I also wanted to make sure that I kept the writing somewhat academic by explaining some of the aspects of the NFL to those who may not be football fans.

In addition, I was also contemplating which method I would use to display the final creation. I was leaning most toward something web-based but I couldn’t decide if I would have enough time or not. Not that it is complete, I am happy overall with how it did turn out.

Before deciding on my research topic, I was prompted to write a blog entry dealing with research based writing I’ve done in the past. I remembered back to when I wrote about how video game violence didn’t appear to be the contributing factor for the violence in today’s youth. Being a fan of video games, this topic seemed to be easy to attack with enthusiasm. After writing this blog entry, I decided to look for another topic that would provide the same connection which was when I decided on fan identity with the NFL.

This was my final proposal for beginning my research process. This proposal started my thought development on what I wished to write about. Once I decided on a topic, I had to outline what I would need in order to successfully deliver a quality product.

First, I decided what it was I wanted to know about the topic in question. Though these questions appear at the end of my proposal, they were the first thing I decided on.

Second, I determined the methods I would utilize in order to answer all of the questions that were raised. Once I felt as though I covered all the areas thoroughly, I started my first proposal draft.

Eventually I would chisel it down to the final document displayed here.