Writing can often be confusing, guidelines can be incredibly rigid or completely flexible, it is often confusing when writing in new ways or in new classes because at first you are unsure of the rules and how your style will be taken versus the style of others. This is what makes finding a style that is true to you so difficult. Almost no one can start off not only writing well in unfamiliar territory, let alone knowing how to and successfully adding their own style to their writing. This is why I found that my peers often cheated, not only out of convenience but also out of fear that their writing style would not match what an educator wanted even if their writing met the guidelines. While that may seem strange and most people would think that meeting the guidelines means a good grade, students were and are often advised to stay away from certain things in writing. Anything subjective was often frowned upon and anything resembling comedy, opinions, contractions, personal pronouns, or exaggerations would be problematic for the grade. This was until students took an elective like creative writing which is all about making writing in your style or sociology when students are almost always writing in subjective ways. When people, especially young people, are conditioned a certain way for a long period of time they will believe that what they have learned is correct and the only way to do something and when they find that there are other ways they can think or work it comes as a shock. Because of this conditioning writers often find themselves with the idea that they cannot add anything to “spice up” their writing but there are many ways in which you can show your values or styles in new genres and settings. The best way I have found to do this is to make yourself a set of questions or guidelines that you can follow e.g. you can add comedy but it has to be appropriate for that situation or you can add your opinion but phrase it in a way that works with the rest of the writing and matches the guidelines of the assignment. The other way I have found is best to do this is to learn from examples, ask a friend to read their paper, see if a teacher has an example, listen to your peers before you volunteer to share something, etc. Through using techniques like these people who are confused will hopefully be able to find their way in their new genre.
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