I hate writing, but I'm not afraid of it (Phuong Nguyen)

Writing is a really tough work. I have been always hated and afraid of writing since I know how to write. I have begun writing in English since I was in my first year in high school. However, it was not until the last year in high school when preparing for my TOEFL test that I took it serious. Until now, I have had two years of experience writing in English. From those experiences, I have got my own definition for writing.

First of all, writing is a good manner to express yourself. Through writing, you can express your ideas, opinions on a specific topic. Writing is especially useful when you are not very good at speaking or you don't have enough time to express yourself to others. In academic fields, writing is considered the main channel that you can use to express yourself to your professors, through emails, projects... When making a project, you cannot just talk about it, you need to make a plan and write everything down. In addition, writing often takes time, so you can look over everything more carefully than when speaking. Hence, you can express yourself more exactly and more efficiently.

Second, writing is a way to gain knowledge from the world. Writing requires more than skills; you need knowledge of different fields in life. Depending on topics of your writing, required knowledge and experiences vary. They can be about science, literature, law, society or more specific such as women’s right, racial differentiation… To write a good essay or paper, you need to have a lot of knowledge in the field, which can be attained through research. During your writing process, you need to think about your topic a lot. Therefore, you may realize many things that you cannot when just reading and researching. Then, you may want to do more researches and learn more. That’s how writing helps you gain knowledge.

Finally, writing helps you know a language better. Everybody meets more or less difficulties writing in a language other than their mother tongue. Therefore, you need to look words up in a dictionary. Sometimes, when I wanted to translate my idea from Vietnamese into English, some words and phrases just came up to my mind. They expressed my ideas exclusively and I have no idea that I have ever known about them. I think that they are what I got from reading stories, articles or watching movies before. But then I don’t have chance to speak them out so I don’t know that they exist in my head. When I write, they pop out, letting me know that I know them.

Once again, I still hate writing, especially when the topic is not what I’m fond of. But I’m not afraid of it anymore. It is because writing is based on skills and knowledge, which I believe that I can do well. Writing, now, seems much easier for me.