"Shitty First Drafts"

In Anne Lamott's "Shitty First Drafts" essay, her central argument was not to over think writing too much when you are working on the beginnings of it. Let your ideas flow, and write down anything that pops into your head, not matter how crazy or weird it might be. Those weird ideas you write down might end up being the spark to your work, or a spark that leads to other creative sparks. Even well-accoplished writers have trouble starting out their work. Not even do the most famous writers sit down with a pen and blank paper, spitting out flawless first drafts with out a problem. "Very few writers really know what they are doing until they've done it," (301) Lamott claims. Lamott is trying to pursuade young writers not to get discouraged or think that if the first draft is struggle, then it means they aren't any good at writing, because this is not true. Instead, she wants beginners to take it piece by piece. She points out that her writing is always a struggle, but in the end, after many revisions and edits, her work always seems to turn out fine.

I think the work on Wikipedia supports Lamott's argument about writing. Wikipedia is a public (meaning anyone can edit/create a page) online encyclopedia. How it works is, people add in information they think would be appropriate and helpful to an article, however they must include the sources of where they got their information. If their information is unreliable, poorly written, or contains other flaws, people on Wikipedia will edit the information. Basically, Wikipedia uses a network of knowledge from individuals across the globe, and it is constantly being editted for improvement. More than likely, the first drafts of these articles were very poorly written and unorganized, making them unreliable sources. The more work that goes into Wikipedia, the better it becomes.