In this linking assignment, I’m going to make connections and analyze differences between the reflections my classmate, Amy Jazienicki, and I did for Task 4 – Manual Script.

It was very interesting to read Amy’s reflection because she made very practical and objective observations about the differences between writing and typing. Amy observed that typing, compared to writing, makes editing and organization much easy. It is a medium that facilitates adjustment-making in a flexible and clean way. I was able to recognize that all these observations are true. In my everyday experience, as I write emails, messages, assignments, etc, it is evident that typing is a more convenient form of bringing thoughts into form. For this reason, it is not a surprise that it has become the most popular medium for text creation.

I was surprised to see how different my reflection was from Amy’s. Not in a contradictory way but a dimensional one, as it seems like we explored different aspects of the differences between writing and typing. I didn’t go much into a comparison of the practicalities of these ways of producing text but rather did a more abstract and subjective analysis establishing connections with performing arts (singing, playing instruments, and improvising). My focus was not particularly on the organization and editing of content but rather on how this content comes into form, observing that writing had a creative-aesthetic element not present in typing.

It seems to me that our analysis was probably influenced by the type of text we were producing. I produced a devotional text which lends itself to spontaneity through getting in touch with inner feelings and express them on the go. It is also a very personal and intimate kind of production that usually no one will read, except oneself. For these reasons, the usual editing and re-organization process is not so relevant, which makes writing a suitable approach for such a task. As explained in my reflection, it is more like improvising music – one simply performs and there is no turning back. Amy’s analysis, on the other hand, connects better to the dimension of composing music, in which there is a whole process of doing adjustments and polishing musical ideas. I would say that most of our daily endeavors of producing text are more similar to composing music. However, other more spontaneous (and unusual) ways of writing come closer to improvisation, for which writing could be a more suitable alternative.

As in my other linking tasks, I appreciate how these comparisons allow me to expand my thinking and see text production from different angles I hadn’t considered.