In his great article “What is Academic Writing?” L. Lennie Irvin tells readers how to write an essay. It begins with an introduction to explain the academic writing task to us, and here, in the 2nd body paragraph, it tells us the secret. And he tells us that's the secret. He says, “So here's the secret.” Your success with academic writing depends on how well you understand what you are doing as you write and how you approach the writing task.' And this idea of understanding what we're doing as we write will inform a lot of the information in the article. We need to understand what we are doing to do it well. So when we turn to the next page, page 4, Irvin will get into the myths about writing, and the myths are really interesting. Many of us believe these myths about how to write an essay as if they were true, so let's examine each of these myths one by one. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Myth #1 is the paint-by-numbers myth. Some of you may not be familiar with paint by numbers. Painting by numbers is something we do when we are basically told specifically where each individual color goes. Most of us would paint the sky blue, the grass green, and a tree brown. And that's basically the paint-by-numbers picture when someone tells us exactly what to do and for something like the sky, grass, and a tree, it's pretty easy to understand. Then Irvin goes on to say that paint by numbers for an essay is actually a myth, and here he says that "some writers believe they have to do certain steps in a particular order." He is talking about paint by numbers as an order that there is indeed a specific way on how to write an essay in terms. Then we have to do the hooking. Then we have to do the thesis. And this, in fact, is not true. Writing, in fact, is recursive and that is what he is trying to say. We have to get over the idea that there is one way, one path, one linear way to do this because that's simply not true. The next myth he gets into is myth number 2, which is that writers only start writing the essay when they have it all figured out, and that's a great myth because writing, in fact, leads to understanding everything. Most of us get ideas when we write, and more so. Here Irvin says, “Writers figure out much of what they want to write as they write it.” And he goes on to say, “you can come back to fix the rough spots.” This is why writing is, in fact, recursive. So myth number 1 and number 2 tie together. We rarely sit back and watch everything explode from start to finish. This is, in fact, a myth. Then we move on to myth number 3, which is perfect from myth number 2 and which is the perfect first draft. There is no such thing. Non-writers have this idea that people sit at the keyboard and the words just flow from the tips of writers' fingers, and everything is perfect, and the grammar is perfect, and everything is wonderful. This is simply not true. Of course, sometimes grammar is better. Irvin goes on to say that we focus too much on the "impossible task" of making first drafts perfect, or when we turn the page, we spend too little time and make them not good enough. before people read them. It's a very complicated balance. Your work needs to be understandable enough so that someone can read it to help give you feedback. By first draft day, by peer review day, it has to be understandable, but it won't be perfect. Myth number 4 is a great myth: the genius' fallacy. And we think that the"..
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