Analyzing The Essay 'Shitty First Draft'

In Anne Lamott’s excerpt “Shitty First Drafts,” Lamott exhibits her own professional experience writing food reviews for California magazine while giving her audience a peek of her “shitty” drafting process. Lamott’s title is unique and not something you would expect to be reading in a college course. Nevertheless, this piece is effective in comforting the audience of students when it comes to writing drafts. Initially when I read the title I was uncertain what the content would be. However, after reading the first paragraph I understood the purpose behind “Shitty First Drafts”. Lamott’s purpose was to comfort her audience and does so almost immediately by saying “all good writers write shitty first drafts.” This statement alone sets a relaxed

“Shitty First Drafts” by Anne Lamott, is a hilarious must read for junior high school students and any other aspiring writers. Her essay inspires comfort and confidence in writing a first draft. It concretes that all writers experience the “shitty” first draft. Anne Lamott wrote this instructional information in 1995, but it is timeless information. She blows the idea of writing an immaculate first draft out of the water. Anne supports the idea that bad first drafts will almost always lead to better second, third and final drafts. She symbolizes the first draft to be like a child. Where you put all your thoughts and emotions out there in words on paper, you go all over the place, you say all kinds of ridiculous things, and all with the

Michael Jordan is arguable the best basketball player who ever played the game. A phenomenal athlete with the unique combination of fundamental soundness, grace, speed, power, artistry, and an unquenchable competitive desire, Jordan single-handedly redefined the NBA superstar. The thing that separated Jordan from the rest of the all-time greats was his compulsive need to win. Jordan was and is still known for his intense competitiveness and will to win, but that has not translated to his ownership of the Charlotte Bobcats.

It is essential to understand that classes taken in grade school do not give students a full understanding of each subject. With the topic of writing, there will always be a new lesson to learn, an aspect to improve, or a differing way to explain. Author Craig Vetter states in Bonehead Writing, “This is your enemy: a perfectly empty sheet of paper. Nothing will ever happen here except what you make happen.” Each story, essay, or response comes from a writer’s experiences. With each attempt at a new piece comes an underlying story of emotions the writer is facing. Each person’s writing is unique and the ideas people have are related to their past experiences and what they believe to be familiar with when deciding which writing style to use. As a high school student, I have learned many things about writing that helped me become the improved writer I am today, but the most essential advice I have received is practice makes perfect. Although there is no actual perfect way of writing, I have discovered that each essay I write, my writing improves. It is easier to spot mistakes, find areas to improve, and ponder elevated word choice to use.

In “Shitty First Drafts,” Anne Lamott illustrates the challenges and difficulties writers face while preparing to write their first drafts, by explaining many different examples and how to eliminate those issues and exceed into creating the “Shitty First Draft.” Anne Lamott’s use of figures of speech, narration, and audience appeals, teach the readers how to write their first draft. Lamott’s descriptive writing and use of details allows the readers to experience her struggles and compare that to themselves. “Even after I’d been doing this for years, panic would set in. I’d try to write a lead, but instead I’d write a couple of dreadful sentences, XX them out, try again, XX everything out, and then feel despair and worry settle on my chest like

Anne Lamott’s “Shitty First Drafts” presents an argument to eliminate the understanding that writers create a masterpiece on their first drafts. The first draft is simply the first attempt that writers create to turn their thoughts into a final paper. Lamott tries to convince the “uninitiated” that everyone writes “shitty first drafts” and often times, positive outcomes come from those first attempts. One of the biggest obstacle in writing is the fear of creating terrible paper and many writers do not realize that this is actually the most important part to a good article. Lamott provided an effective rhetorical situation because of her persuasive appeals and structure.

The standard impression most people have of writers is that they can sit down and just let a perfect composition flow from their heads onto paper. In her writing career, Lamott has observed how “writing is not rapturous. In

While attending writing class, I learned about the 4 steps in writing, bases for revising, organizing, and connecting specific information, and I also learned about the different types of essays such as descriptive, narrative, process, cause and effect and argumentative essay. I have been a student at Milwaukee Area Technical College for 1 semester, and over the course of my enrollment I have grown and learned more that I knew prior to attending this writing course. Participating in this writing class has taught me so much more than stuff about literature and language, it has taught me another way of expressing myself. I have learned here how to write and express myself, how to think for myself, and how to find the answers to the things that I don 't know. Most importantly I have learned how important technique, outlines and organization are. My goal in this paper is to inform writers about how my writing skills have improved.

Shitty First Draft a novel written by a woman named Anne Lamott is an educational novel that talked about her life experience in writing her novels. In Free Writing Exercises written by Peter Elbow, he explains that everyone limits themselves in writing because they are constantly editing their work. In the Pleasures of Reading written by Rebecca Mead it talks about how people read to impress themselves. When I was younger, I loved to read because the stories kept me entertained when I was bored but, as I grew older the books I read started to get more complicated because I didn’t know all the vocabulary which made it harder for me to understand the book I was reading. Finally, “The Maker’s Eye” written by Donald

The text “Shitty First Draft” is written by Anne Lamott from the book “Bird by Bird”, it uses ethos to attract readers by giving examples or personal experience showing that she is very familiar with writing and uses style and substance to keep the readers’ noses tuck in their books. Reading the title readers would expect that this would be a fun read instead of a serious, heavy-content one. This text is mainly for writers and uses a really friendly tone with some jokes along the way. The composition focuses on the fact that all great books or articles start with a really bad first draft.

In the article “Shitty First Drafts,” the author, Anne Lamott, observes and comments on the flaws laced in having a worthy piece of writing. Through her experiences, Lamott demonstrates that writing does not come easily, comparing writing to “pulling teeth.” Generally, she encourages that every writer should engage in writing a shitty first draft because the writer will eventually follow through in producing a better second draft and possibly, a “terrific third

Showing how literacy is more than just writing for school or being pressured in school and how you still procrastinate. Lamott used to write food reviews and the would struggle writing them at times, saying “It’s over, I’d think, calmly. I’m not going to be able to get the magic to work this time.” (pg854 para 3). This shows that even as advanced and growing writers we still struggle and have difficult time writing drafts. Writing drafts before you even know what you’re going to say so you just hope for the best. Lamott tells her story of experiencing the struggles of writing, this helps people feel more comfortable with their own writing. If you think that you write shitty first drafts, there’s always numerous people out there with the same

In her essay "Shitty First Drafts", Anne Lamott attempts to explain that everyone writes really 'shitty first drafts'. She argues that even the best writers' first drafts are horrible, because no one can write perfectly. Her friend even told her that, “The first draft is the "down draft" since you are just trying to get everything down on paper, the second is the "up draft" since that is the one you fix up, and the third draft is the "dental draft" where you check every "tooth" to make sure it's healthy” (222). I enjoyed this essay because it was very easy to read, understand, and relate to. I especially liked how she described the struggle to write or not to write in her head. This reiterated the fact to me that everyone struggles with writing, and it's okay to do so.

Over the course of this past semester, my ability to write has improved tremendously. Prior to undertaking this course, my expertise in writing was not as fine-tuned as it should have been. I had never previously been enrolled in a class specifically tailored to writing-- which was quite clear. Upon reading my past works, it becomes apparent that my writing style consisted of fluff, small words, and inconsistently structured sentences. These problems have, for the most part, been remedied with the coursework I have tackled in College Writing. Rather than long, drawn out papers that take an eternity to reach the primary point, my recent work is much nicer in terms of composition and grammar. I credit these improvements to the three primary

This essay taught me that I needed the composition course to help better prepare me for future college writing. I realized that I was not prepared. After completing this essay, I was not sure I could be a successful writer.