The simple skill of writing, while something we all possess, has many different impacts on the brain. We think of it as a simple action, yet it can be as manipulative as a drug. Studies over the years have proven this using modern technology. Writing affects our minds in many different ways and in many different forms. Writing is the process of recording ideas by the means of using characters or marks forming a type of communication (The Ency.). There is no specific time of the origin of writing, though early writings go as far back 3000 BC mostly because this was the earliest known form of logographic writing. Logograms are signs that represent complete words, so the writing at this time was only read in vague terms, but they could later be translated by use of the principle of phonetic transfer. Which basically, takes logograms and makes them into words (“Writing). …show more content…
Writing can range from being pictures that have hidden meanings, to the alphabet that we use today.
When writing, there is much that goes on within our brains. The frontal lobe is the part of the brain that helps us write and speak. It is also responsible for things such as movement, planning, and problem solving (“How Does”). When writing, this part of the brain comes to life with activity. Mostly due to the fact that while it does helps us write, it is also where thinking occurs, which we are constantly doing as we write. Another important part of the brain that helps with writing is the parietal lobe. This part of the brain helps us understand words and language. People with damage to this part, do not speak or write well (“How Does”). (Lacy). Writing does not only affect the mind of the writer, but it also has an effect on the reader too. When an action occurs in a story, the motor cortex in the reader’s brain will become active. If the story contains details that explain a feeling, our sensory response will become active. As if the reader were actually the character in the story (“How
Does”). Writers have a powerful influence over readers. They do this by making the reader feel emotions that the characters in a story are feeling. Almost to the point where it feels like the reader is experiencing the story first-hand (“How Does”). This differs between nonfiction literature, and fiction literature. In 2009, an experiment was conducted on two groups. One group read a nonfiction story, and the others read fiction. Both texts were the same length and both offered some sort of interesting plot. Before the test, the groups took a test based on five personality traits: extroversion, neuroticism, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. They rated on a scale of one to ten how they were feeling in each category (Oatley & Djikie). After they read the texts, they were tested again. Those who read the nonfiction text stayed around the same as before. For the other group, it was the opposite. Though not large changes, they were worth taking notice. The scientists reached a conclusion that the fiction story, made the readers think of themselves in different ways. “Outside the domain of love relationships and some forms or psychotherapy, the idea of communication that has effects of a nonpersuasive yet transformative kind has rarely been considered in psychology. We hope our studies encourage others to investigate further this important kind of influence” (Oatley & Djikie). Writing can also serve as a tool for relieving stress. Doing mental writing techniques, have been known to be a helpful way of helping stress levels decline (“How Does”). In a study, people were told to write their feelings down. When brain scans were done afterwards, their brain activity matched that of those who were trying to mentally control their emotions. This works with no matter what the subject wrote down. It could be poetry, lyrics, or just random sentences, they all showed similar results (Sample). Writing is proven to reduce stress, mostly because that when people write their emotions, the amygdala becomes less active. This part of the brain controls how strong our emotions are (Sample). Basically meaning that the less activity this part has, the less stress a person possesses. When told to write about a certain emotion event, activity in the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. When this happens it weakens the bond to the strong feelings towards that event. Writing about such events proves to be better than orally stating them to somebody. This is mostly due to the fact that talking about it tends to make people renew their feelings all over again (Sample). Hand writing notes has shown a rapid decline due to the rapid increase in technology’s abundance. Using laptops and other devices has become the common tool for note taking. Hand writing notes helps your memory and the ability to recall and comprehend concepts. People who choose to hand write, say that it gives control to interpret what they are writing the way they want too (Borreli). To fully understand if handwriting is superior, two experiments were conducted at the University of California, Los Angeles. These experiments would measure the effects of handwriting and typing on students. The students were asked to listen and record notes on a lecture in their usual note-taking fashion. The goal of this experiment was to see how much the students remembered afterwards. The findings showed that laptop users ranked far worse when they were tested (Borreli). For the second experiment, the same thing was done, except that the students were tested on the material a week after the lecture. Even then, hand writers still proved superior. It seems that since hand writing takes longer than typing, the brain has more time to grasp the knowledge the writer is recording. Handwriting also provers greater in the fact that when we write by hand, the movements required to write leave a “motor memory”. Which basically helps the reader remember letters and make a connection between reading and writing. In the end, hand writing notes improves memory and brain power in full (Borreli). Different styles of writing also can improve brain power. Cursive writing is one of these styles due to its neatness and structure. Physical activities in general make various parts of the brain becomes active. Another reason why handwriting reins superior over typing (“How Cursive). Cursive writing within itself helps more than print because of the way the letters connect. Each one flows into the next, making the brain work harder to keep that flow going, During this work, the brain remembers these connected words as if they are a single symbol. Making words easier to remember (“How Cursive”). Different ways of writing have different effects on brain activity. Two of these ways are “staged” writing which is basically writing what someone is being told too, and creative writing where someone is free to express their own ideas. The difference between the two are like black and white. Besides their definition, they are also different scientifically. In an experiment conducted on twenty-eight individuals is where these results come from. Each individual was asked to simply copy down a given text and their brains were scanned while they did this. Next, they were asked to an unfinished short story. After they read it, they were tasked with finishing it with their own ideas (Zimmer). During the staged writing, parts of the writer’s brain remained rather quiet with barely to none at all. As for the creative writing part, many different regions of the brain became active. The process of creating a story by going back and forth between ideas seems to need the attention of different parts of the brain at different times. After this, Dr. Lotze, the scientist behind the experiment, wondered if experienced writers’ brains would react differently. So he set out to find the answer in his next experiment (Zimmer). In this experiment, he got twenty novice writer volunteers, and twenty expert writers. They were both tasked with writing a creative story. During the brainstorming session, the beginner writer’s thought processing activated the part of their brain that usually deals with visual images. While the experts activated the speech regions. Dr. Lotze stated “I think both groups are using different strategies. It’s possible that the novices are watching their stories like a film inside their head, while the writers are narrating it with an inner voice” (Zimmer). When the two groups started to write, even more differences were noticed. Inside the brain of the experts, a part of the brain called the caudate nucleus came to life. In the beginners, this part of the brain remained inactive. This part of the brain plays an important role in activities that involve practice. When we first start to learn a skill, we usually just use a lot of mental power that does not require the nucleus’ abilities. As we continue doing this skill, the movements become more and more of a normal routine. The nucleus and other parts of the brain help to make this shift (Zimmer). Overused clichés in writing have taught our brains to overlook them. Meaning that certain clichés how now become so common our brains just think of them as words with no meaning.
Writing is a type of art because it requires you to think and be creative in the way you want it to be. I have a diary that I wrote almost everyday. They help me think about my day and sometimes turn my bad day into a good day. I write whatever comes into my head at that moment, and reflect on my day. Writing make me think deeper to what happen and help me turn my negative thought to positive. Writing is a very powerful tool. When I write, I have the power to change the story. I am the author of my own story so I can be as creative as I want.
Writing is perhaps the most important building block of communication - after verbal speech, of course. Writing, like most of human civilization, has its roots in ancient Mesopotamia. The first writing systems began in a style known as cuneiform (Cuneiform, 2013). These wedge-shaped markings have their roots in Sumerian culture and were used predominantly for record keeping and accounting. At the archaeological site of Uruk in what is modern day Iraq, a great wealth of knowledge has been gained from the artifacts located there. Uruk was a ceremonial site and is home to the world’s oldest known documented written documents (Price and Feinman, 2013). The documents discovered list quantities of goods that may have been stored at Uruk, leading archaeologists to believe that writing in this part of the world was developed primarily to keep lists of transactions and stockpiled quantities of goods located at the site.
For as long as language in its most rudimentary form was created, people have never stopped writing stories. Before people wrote things down, stories and legends were passed down by the elders of a family or tribe. Over time, things can be forgotten, and that is why it is important to write these things down. Stories were created to teach children good from bad, to inspire people to do great things, and for general enjoyment. These stories have taken many forms ever since the original spoken tale. Movies, comics, television shows, and much more have been introduced in order to tell more intricate stories. One of the best, and original mediums for story keeping is a book. A good book can elicit any emotion from you, just as a film or television show could. A good writer knows how to take hold of an audience, and allow them to explore a whole new world as they are sitting on a couch. Both Shakespeare's Hamlet and George R. R. Martin's A Storm of Swords are considered to be amazingly written stories. It is interesting to see how two highly pleasing books relate to each other, a...
In my opinion some individuals, counting myself, is thought that writing is just expressing yourself either by typing or handwriting something to someone and expressing what the person is feeling. I have learned that writing is a thoughtful process, is more than writing what is in your mind. Is thinking beyond what we are reading, is to put my thoughts in order and that everything that I am writing is coherent and have a relationship. One of the challenges that I face every day is trying not to summarize everything in one single sentence or even in a paragraph.
Writing is like getting your nails done because it is a process and done in steps. Most would never think to compare writing and nails. They are two completely different things and done two completely different ways. I don’t believe they are that much different. They may not be physically alike, but they share similar ways they get done.
Throughout history, writing has had many various uses that have helped record information from history to the present day. Writing has obtained many different uses as to how and what we use writing today. When writing was formed in 3200 B.C. it was used to record and communicate. We have since then used writing for numerous issues such as recording information in which we may learn about the past, and for poetry or literature for people, both children and adults, to read and learn from. People throughout history and today even use writing for religious reasons such as writing out a prayer to God or even taking note on what has happened or talked of in the sermon.
No on just writes to write in the proses of writing one has a purpose, they want to inform other people with their information, and get their point across. So writing does not just come out of someone’s head as inspiration and flow on the keyboard and make an amazing paper, it takes lots reading, dissecting, and drafting.
Scribbling helps develop writing skills. “The Scribble Hypothesis predicts that young children who are encouraged to scribble and draw, and to talk and to write, to compute and to compose about their scribbles and drawings will read more easily and will continue to read for pleasure and for information, will write more easily and will
Writing is something that comes to some as a talented ability, yet others as an inconvenient burden. It’s just one of those things where “you either have it, or you don’t.” Within composing, one can express their feelings and emotions through mind-blowing subtle details. The reader can grasp the elements within a story, to where it practically feels as if they are living it themselves. Writing can be an unwinding strategy for some, a method of communicating feelings for others, or just essentially enjoyable.
“Dysgraphia is a learning disability that affects writing, which requires a complex set of motor and information processing skills. Dysgraphia makes the act of writing diffic...
Writing preserves ideas for future evaluation (Nowacek). An individual’s mind would be cluttered with thoughts – both good and bad – if he or she was unable to put them down on paper, organize them, and return later to evaluate them. Upon a second fresh look, one might discover that the idea he or she had had previously was worthless.
There are many ways to use writing and it happens all over the world every day. Receptionists, office workers, computer programmers, teachers, doctors, scientists, engineers, firemen, lawyers, jobs everywhere use writing in some way or another. At hand is the different ways people can use writing; to name a few, people fill out information and paperwork, write books, papers in school, texts, checks, journals, laws, tickets, accident reports, lab write ups, prescriptions, and many other things that can all have a diverse style of writing. The real question is, where did writing begin for me?
Writing and technology are fascinating concepts when closely studied and understood. It seems as though they are connected in a way in which they are almost dependent upon each other for their existence. We could not have writing without technology, nor technology without writing. To find natural means of writing technology is a challenge and a humbling way of viewing technology and the great advancements that have been made in the world.
Although adequate writing skills are indispensable for life, leisure, and employment, quite a few students do not learn how to write effectively. Since writing is an exercise in thinking, it is important to balance the process of writing with the mechanics of writing. The areas of the brain involved in the writing task are varied yet interrelated; therefore, a student’s individual needs will determine the method of instruction they receive. Many students who have low expectations for their own academic success will not make even minimal efforts to complete a...
Literature is rarely, if ever, merely a story that the author is trying to tell. It is imperative that the reader digs deep within the story to accurately analyze and understand the message the author is trying to portray. Authors tend to hide themselves in their stories. The reader can learn about the author through literary elements such as symbolism, diction, and structure. A good example of this is Robert Frost’s poems The Road Not Taken and Nothing Gold can Stay in which he uses ordinary language unlike many other poets that became more experimental (Frost, Robert. “1.”).