Reference no: EM133367385

Questions:

• What works well in the draft, and why?
• What did you learn from reading the draft?
• What elements of the draft were most effective, and why?
• At what points in the draft were you confused, and why?
• After reading the draft, what questions do you have about the subject? What could the writer do to make their points clearer in your mind?
• Where does the writer support their claims with evidence, examples, details, or descriptions? Where might the writer add more evidence to their draft?
• How does the writer connect their findings to other academic "conversations" about discourse community? If the writer does not do so, suggest 1-2 places where the writer could connect their analysis to the "conversation" begun by the discourse community articles and resources we have explored.
• Does the writer use standard academic guidelines for quoting sources? Are all quotations enclosed in quotation marks? Are the sources for each quotation clearly indicated with signal phrases?
• What other suggestions do you have to the writer at this point?
• Address ALL questions and concerns that the writer has expressed.

Case Study: Introduction:

Ever since I was an adolescent, just learning the ways of life, I have been strongly attracted to music. No matter the time, mood, scenario, or sequence, I always welcome music. That said, I have been listening to the band, "Imagine Dragons" for a while now, roughly six years. Imagine Dragons, formed in 2009, is a very successful band with six studio albums, over 58,000,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, and #20 on the record boards on Spotify; this band must be doing something right. I have thought about the "behind the scenes" of the band, and what goes on when they prepare tracks, but I have never looked into it. There must be a deep creative drive for the band to create such a unique style of music. This paper aims to inform others and myself about the creative writing process of this band. I would like to learn from Imagine Dragons by picking apart ways they create music, and hopefully, I can use their methods and become more creative with my own writing. This paper will fit into the bigger picture because creativity is one thing that benefits us in life, so we can learn from others about their creative techniques and then apply them to ourselves. Furthermore, Imagine Dragons use a lot of creativity and deserve to be noticed for that, but we, as listeners, can learn from them and use their techniques in our lives.

Methods:

To gather research for this writing, I will be using an interview with Imagine Dragons' lead singer, Dan Reynolds, where he talks about the process of writing the hit "Follow You." Additionally, I will use an article from an interview with Imagine Dragons, in which they discuss their creative writing process, and I will use an article that discusses the creative writing process. In the report about the creative writing process, an individual, a high-level writer, is studied in his creative writing process. This source was a reading from class, and I thought this would fit well with this paper. I selected this approach because I believe that attaining information directly from the source (in this case, the band) is the most proficient and accurate technique. Along with this, studies and experiments provide accurate and proven information. The interview I am using is a podcast from Spotify called "Song Exploder," hosted by Hrishikesh Hirway. The episode I am tuning in on is "Imagine Dragons - Follow You" from May 19, 2021. I have chosen these sources because they are reliable and give me the information I need, rather than dancing around the topic and adding unnecessary information. If I could interview Imagine Dragons on my own time, I absolutely would, but that is a bit out of proportion. I look forward to learning more about Imagine Dragons' creative process of writing lyrics from these research methods, but I would also like to help myself through this. It is in my best interest to observe the creativity techniques of this band and transfer them into my own writing and even day-to-day life, as creativity is a blessing.

Results:

After executing different research methods, I have learned immensely about the creative writing process of Imagine Dragons. Throughout the interview, Dan Reynolds, the Imagine Dragons lead, hits on the importance of things happening around him when he writes lyrics. Reynolds mentions a time when he and his wife were in a rough patch. Since he was 12 years old, he had been writing almost a song a day, which continued throughout this dark time. Dan Reynolds and his wife, Aja, ended up getting back together and not divorcing, which led to the production of the song "Follow You." He then jumped into discussing the writing process. Once Reynolds found the tune he wanted to use, he said, "I just start to sing about whatever is in my head. Loyalty was really in my mind" (Spotify 5:00-5:05). From this, we learn that Imagine Dragons' creativity process involves a lot of use from what is on the mind of the band at the time, but not overthinking. From here, the songwriters put words/lyrics on paper, match them up with instruments, tunes, and beats, and try different things. Trying out other things is something to remember because this band relies on trying other things and examining their options. With this being said, in my third source, the study experiment of Donald Murray, it was noted that "The coded data showed that up to 45%, 56% and 35% of the writer's activities were concerned with planning". (Berkenkotter 161). Similar to the band, through the planning process, this is a demonstration of the importance of taking the time to explore options that may help produce better creative writing and successful results. An example is that Dan Reynolds re-sang this song three times until he finally found the preferred version. Reynolds then says he gets the chorus set first and then goes from there because he knows what he is singing about, which makes everything else easier. Additionally, one thing this band considers during the creative writing process is not to overthink. Reynolds mentions that by saying, "I recall immediately with 'Follow You,' lyrically thinking don't overthink this" ( Spotify 6:30-6:35). This is relatable with my third source, the study/experiment of Donald Murray. In this source, Murray is studied on his personal creative writing process. One of the tasks was for Murray to write about a certain topic, and he had a one-hour time limit, but he got very little accomplished. The person experimenting, Carol Berkenkotter, stated that Murray claims "the further away he was in time from what he had done, the less he was able to reconstruct decisions he made." (Berkenkotter 160). This shows that less work is accomplished when overthinking occurs and does not lend to creativity. Continuing on with the process of Imagine Dragons, after Reynolds finished the song, he sent the demo to guitarist Wayne Sermon. Wayne would make edits on his own. From there, they worked on the album with the whole group and added different instruments and tunes, once again hitting on the process of exploring their options. Different results come from exploring different options. One example is that this specific track opens up by being recorded through a tape cassette. Imagine opening a song in 2021 and having it start through a tape cassette; creative! With this being said, I learned a tremendous amount about the creative writing process of this band, and it all ties in with my second source.