Charcoal and Run-ons

It's easy to get caught up in the frantic writing fervor that comes about upon realizing a fantastic idea or string of thoughts that can be incorporated into a paper. Whether such an experience comes about from an hour away deadline or simply sitting around deep in thought, the excitement of sudden ideas often presses writers into feeling that all words must be typed or scribbled as quickly as possible onto the empty space and, upon seeing the masterpiece in progress, continue without a second glance at the first splatter of creativity.

This is wrong.

There are several reasons why abandoning momentary light bulbs of realization is bad, with one of the most important being that the enhancing qualities that that creativity brings to a paper can at the same time detract from it if left unattended--not only one of the most common mistakes, but also one of the most correctable. The foundation of a paper is built upon a cohesive flow of ideas that unify smaller components into a vivid "bigger picture," but run-on sentences and fragments of ideas are like blotches of yellow and orange on a charcoal drawing. Readers are attracted to the vividness of what they see, but the connection to the piece's artistic substance is missed.

"What's going on here?"

The solution to this problem is different for the drawing and paper, but the principle is the same: the basis of clear expression rests upon a person's ability to incorporate creativity into and with other ideas in a cohesive manner. Reading a paper aloud facilitates the writing process by enabling a greater sense of mental processing via the vocalization of ideas. Oftentimes words that are silently omitted in a paper are correctly or incorrectly inserted into the recitation of a paper, and catching those little discrepancies is vital to clearly expressing individual ideas for others to interpret.

For example, 'I analyzed Green Eggs and Ham for its artistic substance. Make it a popular children's book."

If I were to read that aloud, I could instinctively correct it by saying, " I analyzed Green Eggs and Ham for its artistic substance [and the elements that] make it a popular children's book." A quick glance at those two pieces of information, however, may leave the incompleteness of the second idea undetected due to the completeness of the first.

The charcoal drawing could be made into a painting.