Knowledge and Revision

Composition has one big key term: revision. I can’t compose, rhetorically or not, without editing the crap out of what I write. That’s why I picked EWM in the first place. I wanted an outlet for my love of tinkering and refining. Reflection is essential in this. I go over things I’ve created yesterday and years ago and each time I look back, I see things I could have done differently. This is one of the most important points of my creative process. Reflection allows room for me to grow as a writer, as a photographer, and as a creative thinker. Reflection allows for me to reshape how I create and also encourages new ideas and outlets. I am always up for discovering new ways to create and compose. Reflection allows me to look at what I did wrong and what I did right, and it helps me become more efficient in the way I work.

Reflection allows me to gain knowledge about myself and about the mediums I’m using to compose. I think knowledge is gained by application and experimentation and that all knowledge is new. Whether or not the original idea was there to begin with doesn’t matter. Personal knowledge is always expanding. Just because something isn’t “new” doesn’t mean it wasn’t new to me. I rely on prior knowledge to avoid making the same mistakes as in the past (both in personal life and in composing.) I also allow my mind to be open to gaining new knowledge because as soon as I close my mind to new ideas and processes, I will no longer be able to effectively compose. Technology, theories, ideas, and outlets are ever changing as all other aspects of life. If I’m not open to gaining new knowledge, whether it is about composition, language, mediums, or rhetoric, I won’t last long in the writing field.

Without being open to new knowledge, I wouldn’t have ever grasped theories of rhetoric. This class was my first exposure to rhetoric as a theory and a discussion platform. Before that, it was always referred to as a technique and never fully discussed. Without being open, I wouldn’t have understood anything about it. But, having discussions on the theories of rhetoric, remediation, and composition, I’ve opened many new doors that were previously unavailable to me. I think knowledge is key to career and life growth and as a student, it’s especially important now.