Name: Ahmad Ghazi Alharbi
Double Entry Journal # 1
Course: ENG 101
Date:02/11/2014
Title: Freewriting by Peter Elbow
Synthesis of Readings
The main argument of the Freewriting by Peter Elbow is that Freewriting exercises, where you just write without
stopping or editing, is the best way to improve your writing skills. The purpose of Peter Elbow’s writing is to let us
know an interested way to help improve our writing by giving us examples of how to ‘free write’, almost like we
speak. Elbow says that we edit too much while we write, and we stop and think about which word or grammar to
use and even cross them out. All of these things make the process of writing not free, and restrict our writing. If we
can stop these things and write exacyly what comes to our mind and don’t get critiques on it or don’t edit it, our
writing will improve a lot.
Position on the Issue
My position on this issue of Freewriting helping to make our writing better is that I agree about this. I think that
Peter Elbow’s method seems interesting and something I would not have thought of based on my traditional
training with writing. But Peter Elbow is a long time professor of English, so I would think he knows about how to
improve writing, and his method is one that anyone can try. His method seems effective overall because the
training of Freewriting to write better is very natural, and if the training is natural, it will help your real writing
also sound more natural.
Supporting Quotes
1-“Never stop to look back, to cross
something out, to wonder how to spell
something, to wonder what word or thought
to use, or to think about what you are doing”
2-“The main thing about freewriting is that it
is nonediting. It is an exercise in bringing
together the process of producing words and
putting them down on the page”
Supporting Ideas, Analysis & Examples
1-Here, Elbow explains the process of Freewriting on actually what
not to do, and most of these things are what people normally do
when they write. Elbow mentions that we should avoid these
common habits because they get in our way of writing naturally,
especially thinking too much and worrying about being so correct.
For example, if we are writing and want to do so in a way that
accesses our mind naturally, we should just write whatever words
come into our mind, even if they are words that say ‘I don’t know
what to write”
2-Peter Elbow gets to the main point of how he defines Freewriting.
Freewriting is actually more about what not to do than what to do.
We have to stop our normal habits of thinking too much about
being perfect and meeting external usual writing rules. For
example, we should not care about editing grammar or thoughts,
and just write so that the transition from mind to page is without
interruptions.
3-“Your voice is damped out by all the
interruptions, changes and hesitations
between the consciousness and the page.”
3-The overall goal of Peter Elbow’s Freewriting method is to create a
kind of tunnel between your mind and the page, and in this tunnel
is a vacuum where no interuptions or any kind of friction will slow
the transfer of mind to page. This quote exemplifies this transfer by
telling us that allowing any distractions will keep our natural mind
voice silent, and this will get in the way of better writing.