In a way, everyone’s technically an author. People write things on a daily basis, whether they serve a big purpose or not. There are many reasons why people write, and it can be as simple as texting a friend or something more complex such as completing an assignment for an ENG 1101 class. It may not seem like much, but for even for simple tasks, such as emailing a professor or messaging a friend on facebook, we think about small details such as tone and word choices depending on who and the context of the messages we write. People don’t write emails to professors using slang and acronyms and likewise, friends wouldn’t message friends using eloquent, verbose vocabulary to talk and gossip about things as well. As students, these details are very important to keep in mind also. For example, a student writing a research paper for a psychology class would have a very different style of writing when compared to writing a creative piece for an advanced English class. The student would have to keep in mind various things such as the purpose of writing and the target audience for each essay. If these things are not clearly defined and determined prior to writing, the essays might not be as refined and polished as the student might have liked to be. These are very important decisions authors have to constantly make while writing. Setting the right “stage” for the piece with details such as purpose, tone, audience could make or break the writing. Therefore, I believe this the idea that Mike Bunns is trying to convey when he stated that we are all already authors. We all make these decisions, whether consciously or subconsciously, to best communicate our thoughts while writing anything, just like authors.
One thing I would like to do in my writing is consider my word choices more. Near the end of the essay, Bunns analyzes the first paragraph of his essay and the importance of word choice. Usually when writing, I tend to just stick as many complex words in my essays to look and sound smart to the reader. However, through his analysis, I realized the impact that word choices actually have on dictating the mood and flow of the story. So now, rather than just looking for fancy words to fill the page for my papers, I will carefully consider my word choices to fit the overall flow and ideas I would like to convey to my writings.
