In general, I’m just a person who overthinks things too much. I worry too much on details and not about the bigger picture. Not only do I have this problem in real life but in my essay writing. I think too much about the details and not about the overall idea of the essay and the more important components of the essay. I feel quite confident in my overall writing skills but of course there is always room for improvement. Although I am content with my writing skills I believe that there are some higher and lower concerns that I need to work on. Sometimes you just need to take a step back and think of all the components of what makes an essay a good one.
Good essays should have good structure, which includes the introduction, body paragraphs and the conclusion. Good essays should include all these things because it helps organize your thoughts and makes it clear for your audience. The introduction is very important because this is what hooks in your audience and makes them want to keep on reading more. Each body paragraph must have proper structure such as having a main point followed with an explanation as to why you believe that why or why it matters. Giving examples and quotes in essays helps me with giving more insight to my audience. As a reader it makes it easier
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Things such as grammar, punctuation, and spelling is something that can be easily improved on. I usually have one of my family members read over my work or I just use an online tool. Online tools such as Paper Rater or even spell check can help you catch those silly mistakes. Online tools can be more helpful than a real person because sometimes people aren’t honest with you 100% of the time. Something I know I need to work on is using “distasteful words” and horrible transitional words as Paper Rater likes to tell
Essays are not just the standard five paragraphs and then done style that was taught to students in grade school. The article “The Sixth Paragraph: A Re-Vision of the Essay” by Paul Lynch, explains quiet well how essays are typically taught and why. It is basically because it is easy to grade and even easier to write. Even when talking about writing or giving an example to a person it’s quite typical to start using the five paragraph format. While writing the standard essay the guidelines are quite specific. BE precise, stick to the topic, and stay impersonal. However, the author states that this made her realize that essays can be confining instead of teaching. So instead the author decided to listen to her students and quit focusing on the
The way it shaped what I was writing was that I would choose topics that I knew very well so that it made it easier for me to just write from things I new and in that way meet the requirements and so it never allowed me to take time and research or acquire new learning. I have written a five-paragraph essay for a class assignment particularly following the “Spart Write” formula. My experience with this was that I was just trying to meet certain criteria and that's all I really cared about. By having to write in such a structure manner it didn't allow me to learn new things. Based on my own experiences and on the readings, the most important characteristics of an academic student essay would be to follow some sort of structure where it doesn't allow you to wander aimlessly but not to structure that it doesn't allow you to learn or explore new ideas. Also mention in “The Age of Essay” having that surprise element because it allows you to learn new things and it might even lead you to contradict things you already
Writing essays was never my forte, it just never came easy to me like it would to others. Since other subjects came easy to me and I had to focus more than others on writing, I had a negative attitude toward the process as a whole. During this summer semester, I was able to grow as a writer, and gain a more positive attitude toward how I write and a better feel for writing in college. Writing a paper is a process in which there are many different stages. In high school I would never write outlines or any sort of pre planning work. Other struggles I encountered in my writing were my theses, and framing quotes.
Strategies and techniques that a person uses are those that allow you to write great papers. There are no rules on how an essay should be written; the only expectations are to get your main point across to your audience. Whether you are writing a persuasive essay, an informal essay, literary essay, argumentative essay, or a compare and contrast essay you name it there is always a purpose. One individual can follow a linear process and can edit it and precede all over with the following steps. Your fellow class mate might have a different way to write or even have similarities within. Writing takes time, patience, and overall practice. Just like how Hairston relates writing to the best athletes. Athletes are not born the best but through practice, time, criticism, and reinforcement it can lead them to become the
I never really considered myself an "acceptable" writer. I always would panic after realizing I have to write a paper because I never feel prepared or ready. After my semester of English 1102, I realized that I can spot good points for my argument, but I had difficulty analyzing them in terms of my thesis. My thesis and topic sentences were not my strong suits because I either don't dig deep enough, or I panic and add so much to my thesis/topic sentence that the syntax and diction is awkward and confusing. I would spend hours trying to fix these errors because of writer's block and anxiety; however, as the semester kept going, I found it to be easier to fix the errors in my paragraph by asking myself how to improve my paper and asking my peers
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
The strengths in my writing are my organizational skills, grammatical construct, and my work ethic. Organizing an essay is a very natural process for me. I always follow the basic guidelines for the structure of an essay, which state that one must have an introduction, thesis statement, body, conclusion, and a works cited when needed. The “Are Helicopter Parents Entering the No Fly Zone?” essay, “Animal Cloning—How Unethical Is It?” essay, and the “The Clean Water Act—Is it Successfully Reducing Water Pollution?” essay all have a proper introduction, an informative thesis statement, a body, great conclusions, and works cited pages. Formatting the essays is an integral aspect of organizational skills. Each new paragraph is indented, the font is twelve-point Times New Roman, the sentences are double spaced, and the headers are correct.
The examples used in the essay are the main contributions to the message. Without examples or really without a fine overall story the text simply can't be interesting. Even a very awkward structure and complex words can make a for a good and easy read if the story can enthrall the reader. The story and the examples given are the most important variables in a personal
English 111 was different from what I expected a college English course to be. I was expecting to have to read books and analyze the meaning of the themes. I found it challenging to have to analyze different websites and design our own. This was different from what I experienced in high school English classes. This course required that I expand beyond my comfort zone when writing essays. This required that I put more time and dedication into projects. It allowed me to learn valuable skills to use in other courses in college and I learned what abilities I need to concentrate on. I carry with me the abilities to use rhetoric devices to analyze websites, research techniques to polish the ethos of my papers, and the knowledge that I need to refine using other sources of media (i.e. websites, PowerPoints, etc.) to present an argument from English 111.
Writing a college essay can be hard. and writing a good unique college essay can be even harder. Writing a good distinct essay can be hard. It’s hard because writing is not my best subject. I usually always go to my peers to help me get ideas I search the web for ideas. The most important thing to do differently is the way you go about writing your paper when writing it. When you give students an essay topic you never receive the same written essay. You always get a different written and typed essay, some are funny, some are boring, some might make you cry, and so on. I think that the way someone is pursuing the subject is important. Not all topics are going to be the best topics to write about but if you can take a boring topic and make it interesting you 've already won the reader in my opinion.
Going into this course, I felt that the reading and writing skills I learned in high school were very beneficial in preparing me for an English college course. In high school, I was enrolled in GATE and AP English courses. In these classes, I was assigned several readings and was taught to actively read by doing annotations. I was to summarize the writer 's main points, to write down my own opinions, or to connect it to any personal experiences. These annotations helped me understand the writer 's message better because I was able to break down the things the writer said and only focused on the important points. Then, I was also able to form my own opinion on that topic by deciding whether I agreed or disagreed with the author’s opinion. Moreover, I used evidence from the text to support my argument.
As a writer, my greatest strength is to layout the essay as introduction, body and conclusion and especially thesis. In EAP, I was taught carefully in this regard, the construction of introduction, a thesis is the main factor because it is the main point of the essay. However, arranging ideas and put them into sentences are not my strong. For example, in the essay, there were a lot of ideas and arguments that I collected and I put them randomly in paragraph...
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 in see what areas I lacked in and where I succeeded. Some of the skills I had shocked me as I didn’t think I had those capabilities in me.
Some of the complications I face with writing is not using enough body paragraphs, forgetting a thesis statement, lack of word choice, punctuation errors, etc. I am unaware at times of my mistakes, but I always try to correct them. I have also come to terms with my strengths and weaknesses as a writer.... ... middle of paper ...
Much like Benjamin Franklin believed, I feel that a person should take advantage of the time the person has in life with activities a person wants to do or needs to do. A person should not spend much time on activities the person does not want to do. Life is way too short to concern oneself with work or other activities one wants nothing to do with all the time. When possible, I try to forget about my responsibility and just let go of the ‘things’ that do not matter to me. I think a person should try to occupy oneself with something productive, worthwhile, or necessary at all times. Even though a person’s life is left up to a person to live, I cannot imagine thinking that I owe my time to society through working a job that I simply despise. I am a compassionate person, but I do not owe anyone anything regarding my time.