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writingresearcher
Butterfly
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21 May 2012, 9:43 am

Hi everyone,

I was so excited to find this forum. For my research, I've been trying to connect with individuals on the spectrum who deal with writing in school. My research looks at how individuals manage writing tasks, and I hope it will prove useful for developing teaching techniques specific to individuals with ASD/AS.


Beth



rabbittss
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21 May 2012, 11:24 am

I have to write papers in a single go. If I get interrupted I have to start all over again. I hate doing drafts of work, and pretty much don't. Unless I have to in order to get a grade.

My method of writing is a bit like being a stone mason, you find the rocks that are the best shape for what you are trying to build ( in this case, quotes, citations, graphs, photos or what have you) lay them out in the order you want them to go in the paper, then fill in the gaps between them. Typically I've found this is done, much as in real life, with copious amounts of straw and BS mixed with sand and left to harden!

It's obviously a decent enough method as I've gotten B's and A's on every paper I've written for 5 classes so far.



questor
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21 May 2012, 4:06 pm

Hi WritingResearcher! Welcome to Wrong Planet! Check out the many interesting and helpful forums here. You are among friends here at WP! :D

My school days are decades in the past. I hated writing essay questions, reports, and stories, although the reports weren't as bad as the other two. For some reason I am better at letters and posts. I was and am lousy at organizing. I realized only recently that I have Executive Function Disorder. I have always had the problem, but had not heard that it had a name before reading about it recently.

I hope you like WP! I do :D


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OddDuckNash99
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22 May 2012, 6:51 am

I'm a very good writer, but writing is always a source of anxiety for me (unless it's casual like on here). I have to procrastinate with writing, because my anxiety is just too great. I have to wait until the time when my panic attack over not getting the writing done gets worse than the panic attack over having to write in the first place. When this happens, my panic fuels me by making me HAVE to write and lessens the worry over perfectionism and what to say. The reason I hate writing is its subjectivity. You have NO idea when you write an essay whether it's "good" or not. All you know is whether you answered the prompt, but it's so unknown whether you did that correctly. :roll:

Another trick I use for writing about things that aren't directly connected to my field or one of my other biggest special interests is trying to find a way to incorporate something, no matter how small it may be, special interest-related in my writing. If I have zero interest in the topic, it makes it even more difficult for me. Luckily, there are lots of ways to connect things in literature to abnormal psychology. In fact, the first research paper I ever had to do was about A Separate Peace in 10th grade. I just had started my special interest in neuropsychiatry around the time of the paper, and I chose to write about the psychiatric symptoms of Gene, Finny, and Leper. Similarly, my junior year of college, I took an upper-level history course for my minor that ended up being very literature-based. I lucked out, though, because one paper I had to write was about Dorian Gray, which I absolutely loved due to the strong psychiatric content. And another paper I had to write was about Jekyll and Hyde, which also had strong psychiatric content. :lol:

As for my process of writing, I do pretty much exactly what rabbitss described- I find all of the material and compile all of my resources, and then, I figure out the best parts to use and piece it together. It really is very much like building a puzzle, because you start with a bunch of jumbled pieces, and slowly, you start to see it come together and make the final product. I rarely write papers in order. To help motivate me, I will start with whatever part most interests me and leave the most boring part(s) for last. So, I tend to write a mish-mash of body paragraphs that deal with what interests me the most, the intro, the paragraphs that bore me, and then the conclusion.

Also, I have to handwrite whatever I'm composing. Then, I type it up. I HATE the feeling of writing something formal and staring at the screen. It makes me worry that I'm not doing enough, and I don't like the pausing after I finish typing an idea. I want to type the next idea, and when I can't think of it right away, I get stalled. With paper/handwriting, I can scratch out whatever I want, I can highlight different parts after writing them to help join them together, and the movement of the pencil is much more fluid and makes me feel more productive. I also can't write without specific instrumental music. With music that has lyrics, my brain follows the song lyrics and I'm unable to produce words of my own. But if I have total silence, I get the same stalled/panicked feeling I get when I try typing and not handwriting.


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