Alright, finals week is literally right around the corner and if you're anything like me, most of your finals consist of writing an essay. If your professors were kind, they already gave you that prompt. But if they're secretly Satan, you are sitting here in an attempt to keep yourself from having a meltdown. I understand your pain and so, here are a few ways to mentally prepare yourself to conquer these final essays. One of the main issues with the writing process is procrastination, AKA the mindset of "Due tomorrow? Do tomorrow." A way to conquer your issues with procrastination is to set yourself daily goals and reward yourself when those goals are met. If your procrastination is happening because of feeling overwhelmed by how many finals you have, you need to focus on which final is due before the other one. Prioritize your finals and once you complete the one, reward yourself and move on to the next final. I know it's a lot of work but it will be worth it in the end. I know C's get degrees but don't you just love that feeling you get when you see an A or a B I know I do Once you get past your problem of …show more content…
Many of you hate outlining but this strategy is pretty helpful once you figure it out. Like mapping, outlining can help you figure out where you want to go and how you want to get there. It also helps you figure out where you need more information or if you need to reorganize your paragraphs. If you still hate outlining you could try reverse outlining. Reverse outlining is exactly what it sounds like: write your essay first and then outline the paper to see if you need to move paragraphs around or if you need more information in a particular area. Once you get past the hard part of starting, take all of these ideas and create your first draft. For me, it's best to write your first rough draft in one sitting just so you can get all of your thoughts down. It's okay that by doing so you'll probably look at it in the end and think its
I have always had troubles writing the introduction of papers. The introduction is the base and sets the mood of the whole paper. I believe it is the most important paragraph in the paper. But once I develop the introductory paragraph, I find the rest of the paper easier to write. In order for me to better myself in writing introductory paragraphs, I just have to get more in touch with my creative side. After the rough draft, the students of the class would bring their papers to the course and would get into groups to peer review the papers. This would helpful to receive the views of our peers to help edit our assignment. After the peer review of the rough draft, the next step of the writing process was the revision. The revision was when we take the information and opinions from the groups and corporate them into our papers. Also, for the revision, you would offer work days for you to proof read our paper before we had to type our final copy. This was extremely beneficial for us to get your opinion on our paper d...
When writing a five paragraph essay, there are five steps one must fallow in order to attain perfection, these steps include understanding the question, brainstorming, writing a rough copy, revising, and creating a final draft. The first and most important step is understanding the topic. The topic of the essay is what the essay will be about and if this is misunderstood, the whole essay will be off course. The second step, brainstorming, will help organize thoughts and ideas so they flow amiably. There are many different ways to brainstorm, some of the most helpful are making a web of ideas, making a list of ideas, or creating a Venn diagram to compare and contrast the conviction. All these ideas will be related to the topic at hand. For example, if the essays topic is about how the earth is affected by global warming, then the brainstorming ideas might include the ozone lair being reduced or how global climate has raised. The third step when writing a five paragraph essay is creating the rough draft. The first draft must have all the features the final will, but does not have to be...
English composition has always been a weak point for me. I despised the thought of having to write down my thoughts on paper in a manner that was appropriate for my teachers. English 1301 introduced me to a new tool to soothe those crazy thoughts through stream of conscious writing. At first I was very skeptical, but it proved to be valuable in understanding that I had more knowledge of the topic of discussion than was realized. Although that tool helped tremendously, it did nothing to quell the quality of my procrastination skills. In high school, I completed most of my homework at the last minute. Coming into college, that clearly could no longer be the case but it still stuck. One concept that utilized my procrastination skills to my advantage was peer review. Peer review forced me to write all of my essays ahead of time in order to make the grade. Not only did it help with my procrastination, it also gave me lots of feedback on my writing. During the narrative essay draft one, I was given a lot of revisionary advice, and that was due to the fact that I wrote the paper at the last minute. Knowing that, when it came time to write the argumentative essay I spent more time actually putting better grammar and diction into my essay because I did not want my peers to think any less of me academically. As
I am always a little nervous and hesitant when I begin writing an essay. Ever since I was little I was an honor roll student, passed all my tests, was placed in honors and AP classes, and eventually graduated a year early from high school. I used to be so confident when I would begin writing a paper, I could finish it within a couple minutes. During junior year of high school, I began taking duel credit classes. I was passing all the classes so far until I reached English 111. It was an 8-week course and I started to get overwhelmed. All throughout the course I was having a little bit of trouble on the essays. I would still receive a passing grade, but it wasn’t an A. I began becoming a little discouraged and didn’t understand what was going
There is so much more information to be gained on the other steps of the writing process. The writing process can be extremely over whelming too many. This is why it is incredibly important to take the adequate time in the early stages of the writing process to create a solid foundation. During the first stage of the writing process be sure to ask what should be written, the parameters of the writing project and know the audience that the project is being written for. Brainstorming the topic, creating an outline and freewriting all help to narrow down a topic and organize thoughts about the subject of the writing project. These steps will aid in creating a draft of the writing project. Drafting is one of the very important steps in the writing process. The first draft will be revised scores of times to create an interesting and successful finished product. These first steps in the writing process can lead to a solid and successful writing
This article “Shitty First Drafts” by Anne Lamott help me understand that every good writer struggle to write their first draft and it might not be perfect at first but with a lot of dedication and effort everything could be done as expected. know that even the best published book started out with “Shitty First Drafts” help me to not be too critical to my first draft and having a little bit more confidences about my writing. I would apply this lesson whenever I have a writing assignment and I am get frustrated on how to start my essay, I would remember that all writers went through this stage of anxiety and not comfortable about their first draft. I would definitely recommend this article to a student that is starting their first composition
What I've done to rectify this was set up a schedule where I completed assignments for each class day by day rather than wait until the last day to complete an assignment and have that pressure on myself. I set up a specific day to start assignments, another day to look them over, and a third day just to submit and see if I had completed everything. I feel as though this
If you were to ask me to write an essay before August, I would have picked up a pencil right away and just started writing, not understanding how significant an effect that having an outline can have on my writing. My first graded assignment was to write an essay on altering public space, which seems like a simple task at first. However, I turned this simple task into an essay style scrabble tournament, throwing words in wherever I could fit them. There was no organization whatsoever in my essay. I had what I thought were good points and descriptions, but nothing really made sense and there was not much flow to the paper. Subsequently, I made a sixty-nine on my ...
When my essays are read aloud I am able to find my mistakes. I also created a pre-writing system in which I take the topic and break down the essay into sections in which I focus on specific topics instead of just going with the flow. I have noticed when I go with the flow my essay tends to be sloppy and jump around. I found that my techniques helped me write my research essay. It made my research essay seem like a piece of cake because it was separated. Each paragraph was given it’s individual time and notes to make them all
I never would have thought that I would have an epiphany in the office supply aisle at my local Target. There I was, staring at the planner section, contemplating my messy, unorganized life. If I wanted to take charge of my life I needed one these bounded stack of paper. So, I chose an adorable mid-sized planner with a white and blue chevron cover and made my way to the checkout lane. With my new planner in hand, I made the conscious decision to use this planner religiously. I felt confident in myself walking out to my car knowing that I had taken a tremendous step in the right direction. In that moment, I put my messy, procrastinator ways behind me and looked ahead at the beautiful organized path before me.
I have always been sure that I am patient. I believe that I can easily see situations in different perspectives. However, it was brought to my attention that I lack in patience and perspective when faced with frustrating situations. A late evening with infuriating car problems opened my eyes to numerous notions. Not only did I recognize how unprepared I am for these situations and my deficient car skills, I recognized my lack of gratitude and perseverance in trying situations.
Over the past semester, I have found the most challenging part of this course to simply be the transition from high school composition classes to college. Because writing expectations are so different in college than in high school, even with AP and Dual Enrollment “college level” classes, I first found myself being overwhelmed with the pressure to write the perfect first draft. The pressure came from knowing how much a final draft of a paper contributed to my grade. This left me sitting in front of my computer for hours at a time with thoughts of what I wanted to say racing through my head, but unable to deliver these thoughts into organized, structured sentences. I learned, through writing my persuasive essay, that instead of trying to write the paper start to finish and already in its perfect form, it is easier for me to look at the paper through its different components and focus on them individually, then work to best organize my ideas fluently.
Human beings are, by design, built for continual personal development and self-improvement. We are naturally competitive. Driven to become the best, we strive to overcome every obstacle in our way to be better than the person next to us or the person we used to be. Striving for excellence is motivating and effective, but chasing perfection is demoralizing. While the pursuit of greatness and perfection may look alike, the results are vastly different.
I was never a person that liked to write essays. This semester I really enjoyed writing those essays and specially because I was learning new things while writing them. Some things I could do to improve my essay writing are not to wait till the last three or four days before I turn my essay in to start doing it. Another thing I will do is if I forget how to do something or about some rule in the common errors I made I will just go back to all the lessons I printed out to have as reference. I think those will help me allot. And one last thing I will do to improve my writing is to try my best not to confuse all those words I got confused. I will do my best to learn each word and its rule of where it goes so I won’t have the same mistakes I had this semester.
When I write a paper, I usually tend to write and edit at the same time. I could never continue writing without correcting my mistakes and making sure everything seems perfect. However, throughout this course, it made me realize that I should write everything on my mind, when writing a paper, just like I would in my notes. Later on, I should revise and edit my paper, making sure to cut back ideas and sentences that are off topic. Additionally, I’m the type of person that likes to write with no boundaries. Writing my research argument essay, made me realize that I could stick to a structure and yet bend the rules a little bit. When we started with this assignment, I was truly excited to research and write about a topic that I am passionate about. When we were asked to form an outline, I was bummed. I felt like I wasn’t able to form ideas or narrow down my topic, let alone write...