Sunday, February 28, 2021

Why Write Papers In The Age Of YouTube

 Why Write Papers In The Age Of YouTube



I have been writing papers since I was in grade school. They were horrible. I did not want to write them, and the teachers did not want to read them. No one knew why we had to complete writing assignments. It was in the 1980s, so there was at least no internet to distract us, so there was not an excuse there. Even though no one wanted to read those papers or write them, they continued to be assigned in middle school, high school, undergraduate, and graduate degrees. No one was ever happy to write a paper or read them.

When you read, it is over subjects you enjoy, and probably from people that love to write and have the gift to write. Same with watching TV, you expect a good story and good acting. If the acting and storytelling were on the level of a first-grade written and acted play, you would not watch it. Not unless you were related to someone in that production, of course.

At some point, if you continue writing papers, you figure why you write them. Papers are not some chore that frustrates you, they are to help you put your thoughts in a clear and logical format. People that write papers on their own, yes this does happen, are working to figure out a problem and by writing their thoughts and research in a paper, they learn about that topic. 

This could have been expressed better to me when I was in grade school. I could have understood it. I may still not want to write a paper, however, I could understand why someone would want to learn a topic in that format. Putting your thoughts on paper is a method many people use even outside of writing a paper, many YouTubers make outlines of what they want to cover in their videos. 

With YouTube, do we even need papers? Could a writer just talk out loud about their thoughts live on the web? No. Writing focuses your thoughts. Writing can be challenging and intellectually painful. In some papers, you have to fight out all of your preconceptions to get to the truth. Once you have finished that paper, you feel good. A job well done. The battle is over, now you can rest until the next paper.

I would challenge you to write a paper, for many you have not written a paper since high school or college. You can use YouTube to learn how to write, for me, once I organize a paper, the paper is easy to finish. Pick APA or MLA as style, these will help you in your writing. You do not have to be in school to write academic papers. There is a pandemic going on, by now you have watched everything online. Right? Go write!

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