Personality Impact on Writing

As a student writer it is good to be aware of how your learning style and personality impact your writing process.  After completing The Keirsey Temperament Test (Links to an external site.) I learned that my personality type is ENFP. Extravert, iNtuition, Feeling, and Perceiving. I then looked through the information on Your Personality Type and Writing (Links to an external site.) and How Your Personality Type May Affect Your Writing (Links to an external site.) to gain some knowledge about myself.

As an Extravert I benefit from others. Often bouncing off their ideas and always wanting to receive another's comments before revising. Extraverts also tend to write outlines and want immediate results. I tend to do all of these things. For example on my last blog I was with four of my friends, one of which is in my English class. I was constantly asking all of them for advice and when I was finished I had my friend Tristen read through it and revise it before submitting it.

With the next part of my personality being iNtuition I need assignments that have general instructions allowing me to be original. I tend to write quickly allowing ideas to suggest the next and I typically generalize with the lack of support. I consistently see myself doing this. I typically see everything together and don’t usually break it down in specific examples, like I’m doing now.

Feeling is the third part of my personality which I think I relate to the most. With this I am motivated by assignments that relate to me personally or connect people together. I am always wanting my topic to be interesting and the focus to be on the audience directly. With this I tend to overdo personal insight, and need further clarification. One good example on how I could better this in my writing is by citing both the pros and cons of the argument.

The last type of my personality is Perceiving. With this I tend to select a broad topic without limiting it. Always just finding one more article or book to read. This makes first drafts way too long and revising is usually spent cutting out the unessential. Usually when I find myself doing this it is frustrating. To try and avoid this I am going to start with a more specific topic, that way I don’t have too much information and I can focus on more specific details.

In conclusion to this I feel like taking The Keirsey Temperament Test has helped me better understand who I am as a person and a writer. With the examples I was given I am now able to understand why I write the way I do and how to be more successful and perform better in my writing.