Writing is an essential part of the day-to-day work in the academic community, so everyone in it should excel in this skill and follow the essential writing conventions. By being a part of Writing 39 B class, I have studied many important rules of the academic writing, which will help me to succeed in my future career. One of the conventions, which I have learnt in this class, is that while working with academic sources, one should always properly introduce and expand every quote and cite each source in correct MLA format. In the beginning of the course I neglected this rule, I made mistakes in the MLA format and even finished my RA essay with a quote without describing how it related to the main idea. However, after attending Professor’s classes …show more content…
At first, I was not skilled enough in the introducing my sources and was doing it by writing something similar to:” Randy Bomer wrote:” Every piece of writing, every text we read, comes to us both as a text—the piece it is—and as a kind of text—an instance of genre,” (Talonova, p.1). without proper explanation about who Bomer is and what authority he has on the question of literature genre. However, later I changed this practice, as one can see in my RIP Project, where I write:” My friend, who has moved to the US from Russia and now studies at the University Nevada Las Vegas, Viktoria Savatorova, says that: “immigration is a very challenging process, because a person needs to change their values” (Talonova, p. 9). This quote demonstrates my improvement in the work with sources, because here I not only wrote who I quoted, I also explained that this person is “my friend”, whose authority on the subject of migration, my readers can trust, because Victoria “has moved to the US from Russia” herself (Talonova, p. 9). I also used sources to create and prove the argument about the text. For example, I used a quote from Peter Guber’s text, “The Inside Story”, that:” telling purposeful stories is certainly the most efficient means of persuasion in everyday life, the most effective way of translating ideas into action,” to prove my belief that Oates wrote her …show more content…
I always strive to give a productive feedback on the works of others. Before this class, I didn’t know how to write an effective peer review and was not sure why this task was important. All peer reviews, which I received myself before this course were too positive and vague. My classmates only wrote that I was doing good job and didn’t specify how I should improve my skills. However, while studying in the Writing 39 B class my opinion on peer review has greatly changed. It was most influenced by the "To Give is Better Than to Receive: The Benefits of Peer Review to the Writer's Own Writing" essay. By reading that essay, I have realized that by doing a peer review a writer learns to” better understand the writing criteria and better revise my (their) own text” (Talonova, 1). I have done my best in this class to give my most objective and specific reviews on the works of others. From receiving a feedback from my classmates, I was able to see my work from the other points of view, and better understand how to edit my
In the article of Daniel Richards, the author mentions about in-class peer review. Daniel shows the readers about two types of students who were facing the in-class peer review. One student acts very nervous and he is scared about being shamed if he read his draft in front of his classmates. Other student acts like very confident about his writing and be ready to show his classmates how good he is in writing. In-class peer review exists some social factor about feeling. It may get hurts, the emotion of your classmates and your teacher, feeling shamed when your classmates rate your draft bad. However, the feedback from your peers will motivate your writing somehow. You will know which your weak side and strong side are, then you use it in order
Other than learning how to argue (my boyfriend loves my new ability) I learned how to source my research using MLA format. This new skill is tremendously important in college because most professors, if not all, require their papers to be submitted using MLA format. Throughout my upcoming years at Valencia and then The University of Central Florida I will find writing papers significantly easier because sourcing will be practically second nature. In class we were taught how to use the in-text reference throughout our papers, build our own citation and how to set up our work cited page. Although in high school we used the MLA format for papers, prior to taking this class I hadn’t noticed how many small details go into the actual citation, the authors name is last name then first name, the commas must be in the proper place, page numbers etc. In some classes you “learn” how to do things however it is only stored in short term memory because you don’t consider it an important attribute or useful for future classes. Personally, I made sure I knew how to do MLA, every aspect of it, I reviewed the rules, did my assignments, and then reviewed my assignments in order to store this new skill in long term memory. By doing this I have successfully transferred the information to long term memory and made it into a skill.
...Academic Writing. Ed. Gerald Graff. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012. 179-189. Print.
In Holistic Versus Trait-Specific Evaluation, the author claims that the best person to professionally judge a writer's work, is the person writing them self. They can look at their own writing by using what's provided after the reading, they're called "self-talk" rubrics, used as guides for talking to one self about their own writing. The self guide offers statements for talking to one self ,for one's writing. The author argues that students have to learn how to talk to themselves in a way that their professor do, when grading the student's papers. If a student understands what their professor is looking for, then the student will increase their chances at success. The author uses the Olympic games as an excellent example to show how working
When many people write, including myself, they get attached to their writing. Although writing can be a personal thing, I’ve learned that it is important to step away from your paper, and take the feedback on an objective level. The first time I got feedback, I had an overwhelming urge to defend myself. I remember reading that my introduction wasn’t complete, and that my evidence wasn’t properly introduced. I wanted to walk up to those who critiqued my paper, and spit right in their faces.
Opinions. One quote I disagreed with was, “It seems to me that middle-class culture, and schooling gratuitously and foolishly rob children of the pleasures of the physical and intellectual work of learning generally and writing in particular” (21). This is invalid. Not everyone grows up around writing, and reading. Sometimes reading and writing isn’t fun for everyone. It can be boring, or even hard to follow. Reading and writing are a choice, not a requirement. Following onto that quote was one of my favorite quotations by Savannah which stated, “I despaired of becoming a writer whenever a grade or comment even hinted I had not learned and meticulously followed all the rules of spelling, punctuation, and grammar” (3). I do agree with this quote because criticism does break down one’s integrity, and devotion to their work to keep on going. If there is continuous negative feedback given, then it prevents writers from continuing on. I have always struggled as a writer, and I do not appreciate receiving negative criticism. However; when I was younger, my parents had always told me that “criticism is the key to success”. In order to succeed, one must fail as an individual to set higher goals, and actions
They Say, I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing (2nd ed.). New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
2. Also when quoting you must always place in parentheses the name of the author and the page on which the quote can be found. This way your readers can look up the quotes for themselves.
Gradually through the whole semester, Peer Review sessions became a great and positive influence on my writing. It is very helpful to have two people with different views on writing read and critique my paper, and give me feedback on what they think I should improve or correct. We didn’t change peer review groups and I was very delighted because I have gotten a chance to see my group members grow as a writer. When it’s time to revise my paper before I turn it in for a grade, it is very helpful to have some options on what to exactly revise in my paper. For example, in my comparative analysis essay, both of my peer reviewers wrote that my introduction was not effective and i...
The class divided into groups of four and edited each other’s rough drafts. The activity was an eye-opening experience because their comments towards my essay assisted me while I created the final re-draft. Several of the comments were positive and pointed out that the structure, organization, and examples given were well done and thought out. This feedback gave me a sense of satisfaction with my essay. I was thankful that one of the reviewers pointed out that the thesis was missing at the end of the first paragraph. The thesis that I constructed was placed at the beginning of the first paragraph. I rearranged my sentences and added a proper introduction to correct the structure of the essay. The editing took a while, but I was pleased with the final outcome. Without the peer review process I would not have noticed this major mistake. With future essays, I will be turning to my classmates for advice because hearing feedback from other points of view is helpful. I will consider every comment that I receive, knowing that working on them will allow me to produce a higher quality of
Writing can be very frustrating; laying your ideas out on paper so that others can grasp the concept you are trying to convey is a very difficult task. In Writing 101 I have learned how to formulate good theses that are arguable and also how to validate articles that have to do with my topic. The most important element of a paper is the thesis statement. It captures the reader's attention and tells them what the essay is about. Having a well-structured thesis along with evidence to support that thesis are the main ingredients to a well-written essay. I have also learned how important it is to research an author’s background to ensure their credibility. This is a very important step in writing because today we can find information on a topic, however, it is not valid. By researching the author, we can see if he or she is an expert in the area and so this would make his or her information more credible. There is a ...
If you are someone that has no idea how feedback can truly affect a single person's ideas or feelings, I invite you to sit in on my eight o'clock morning class for College Writing. As the students shuffle in, half asleep, a few nervous classmates sit quietly at their desk...
In final analysis, my writing has greatly improved during this semester, and having looked at the area's I most need to work on has given me an awareness of what my weaknesses are. Examining what I have learned and what I need to learn allows me to generate a strategy to fortify my writing skills. Critiquing my own work has given me insight into how my writing is progressing in this class and allowed me to see short comings I had missed previously. Self-evaluation is a helpful tool for anyone who wants to continue to learn what areas they can improve upon and how much progress they are making. I believe those who appraise their own work will have a better understanding of their strengths and weaknesses then those who do not evaluate themselves.
Over the course of the semester, I feel that I have grown as a writer in many ways. When I came into the class, there were skills I had that I already excelled at. During my time in class, I have come to improve on those skills even more. Before I took this class, I didn’t even realise what I was good at. This is the first class where I felt I received feedback on my writing that helped me to actually review my work to see what areas I lacked in and where I succeeded.
I thought that they helped with pointing out some of the things that I might have done wrong. For example, the peer reviews helped the most with my word count. A few times I didn’t have enough words in the writing. In the argument essay I didn’t have enough words and the peer review helped me realize that in time to add another example of authors that didn’t like the movie adaption and that was enough to get enough words in the writing.