Many
people think that writing is a very difficult thing to do so they often read
some books without rewriting what has been read previously. Actually people
never realize that there are many benefits of writing from something what they
have read. Article entitled The Craft of
Research, Chapter One: Thinking in Print (Booth et al., 2008) explains
about one of benefit when people try to write it up is to help them to understand.
What this means is that writing is to see the larger pattern in what people have
read (Booth et al., 2008). Through writing people can find the broader things than
what they have read because writing encourages them to find some information, stimulates
their own ideas, and shares with others through the discussion and feedback. Therefore in writing, people get more than
just the basic concept to be able to understand from what they have read.
Writing
allows the ability to thoroughly organize the basic concept of the material and
to see the connections between concepts to each other. It is sometimes difficult
to reach the goal and people may think they are “not enough” from what they
have read so they need to find further information on a related topic to their
writing. Through reading from other sources, people will gain knowledge and it
is important to get the better understanding about the topic. A famous quote from
the great author, Stephen King, that say “If you don’t have time to read, you
don’t have the time (or the tools) to write, simple as that” (Hanski, 2014). So
basically reading and writing have close relationship because writing need
adequate knowledge to give the new ideas in writing.
Writing
helps people to elaborate the concept of what they have read by using their own
thoughts so that they come up with the new idea. People will continuously
develop the idea in their minds and need to write it up in their writing. As MacArthur
et al. (2007) points out that writing is a powerful tool for getting thing done
and a language skill to convey knowledge and information. In this case, it is
meant to convey the idea that people need to correlates between the concept and
previous knowledge or experiences from themselves.
People
write not only for themselves but also for others. Wardhana, cited in Pujiono
(2011) states that writing is a skill in expressing an idea in people’s mind
into a paper that can be read and easily understood by others. The point here
is people will let others know his/her writing from what they have been read.
In other side, the reader may give suggestion about the idea presented by the
writer. These suggestions will become an input to the writer to get a new
insight about their understanding or writing. In another hand, the reader may
support or develop these ideas to make it better by adding some their own ideas.
On the whole writing helps others to give the feedback about it.
It
will be a lot of advantages when people not only read about something but also they
try to write it up. At least people will get three benefits in writing from
what they have read and they would see the larger thing behind the concept. Writing
is the good activity for people and it this should be used as a habit. People must
take a time to write because writing is the one of the process of learning.
REFERENCES:
1. Booth,
C., Gregory, G. and Joseph, M. (2008) The
Craft of Research, Chicago and London, The University of Chicago Press.
2. Hanski,
Mike. (2014) ‘Want to write better? Start reading, a lot’, Bid for Papers, 16 April [Online] Available at http://bid4papers.com/blog/read-more-write-better/
(Accessed 25 November 2014)
3. MacArthur,
Charles A. and Jill, F. (2007) Best Practices In Writing Instruction, New
York, The Guilford Press.
4. Pujiono,
S. (2011) Penggunaan Strategi Catalisting Untuk Meningkatkan Kemampuan Menulis
Esai Mahasiswa JPBSI FBS UNY, Yogyakarta, Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta.