Journal Article — Penning the Sociological Imagination: Writing about My Struggles with Writing — by Than B. Pham

I have never liked writing. Writing in general is extremely difficult for me. Throughout high-school and on to college every single paper was the bane of my existence. Every time I heard the word ‘essay,’ I knew it was going to be a dreadful experience. I still remember every single essay that I wrote during high school. Every single one took hours of painful writing and typing. For me the most difficult part of writing was the thinking process. My thoughts were often disorganized to begin with. Writing and typing ideas down were excruciatingly slow. It was a struggle for me from beginning to end. Since beginning college my writing has become more of a problem. It takes me more time to write an essay and it can still be incredibly frustrating. I often find myself distracted from the writing/thinking process, which makes it increasingly difficult and frustrating. Writing this paper while trying to use my sociological imagination, I come to realize that this problem is not one that just affects me. Perhaps my difficulties with writing could be resulting from how I was socialized. Looking at it from this point of view it is possible that there are many micro and macro social factors that explain my difficulties with writing, and how I can overcome them. As odd as it may sound, my writing this paper has contributed to my sociological understanding of why I have had so much difficulty with writing, and whether I can do anything to improve it.