When choosing pieces to revise for this portfolio, I tried to choose the ones that I felt needed the most work. I ended up choosing “Welcome to Elizabethtown”, “How I know”, and “Why People Volunteer”. These pieces were chosen because I saw a trend in the errors that I was making. In all three papers, I found that I was making the same mistakes over and over. So when correcting them, I tried to employ all the things that I have learned since I wrote them. For all three pieces, I focused on fixing three main things, style, sentence structure, and vocabulary. Critiquing and correcting my own work was one of the more difficult assignments. Nonetheless, I feel that I came out of the class with more knowledge than I went in. For the piece “Welcome to Elizabethtown”, I found that my biggest mistake was simple grammar and style errors. There were plenty of opportunities throughout the writing for using a more educated vocabulary and I found that if I had simply re-read more closely, I wouldn’t …show more content…
Being an avid volunteer is something that I pride myself on. But when re-reading and self-critiquing this essay, it felt very jagged and had little flow to it. the transitioning words were basic and the vocabulary used felt juvenile. The biggest challenge for editing this essay was bringing the phrases and language to the level that would be expected in a college level essay. I did this by using a thesaurus and other online writing tools and going through line by line and ensuring that I got the most out of every sentence. The transitional phrases were elementary, so they too got upgraded. Coming into this type of essay with so much personal knowledge of the information caused my writing to break down. There was a sense of cockiness that in one paragraph that did not aid the others. In the future, I would try and bring to each paper a healthy dose of both personal knowledge and
Throughout this portfolio, I demonstrate my abilities to critique my own writing and to make an argument based on evidence and analysis. My revised papers are the evidence, and the analysis I make is how these papers show my growth, improvement, and now capable writing abilities to meet the outcomes of English 131. In the very creation of this portfolio, in addition to the revised essays, I accomplish multiple global objectives for this class. These objectives include writing a complex claim, writing with intertextuality, showing awareness of my audience, and revealing the effect of successful, critical revision and editing techniques. As I aimed to meet these outcomes throughout the quarter, my writing slowly, but surely developed into critical, organized, and academically correct text.
Similar to my “one and done” mentality, my lack of revision on my writing pieces is because of meer laziness. Revision is in fact very important because it offers you the chance to look at your writing pieces from a critical perspective. It allows you to analyze all of your points and change anything that needs to be changed for the better. In Shitty First Drafts, I like how Anne Lamott describes this process as dental work. She says, “check every tooth, to see if it 's loose or cramped or decayed, or even, God help us, healthy”. This sums up revision in an very alternative and pictorial way. Lamott and Shirley Rose would see eye to eye in the subject of revision because in All Writers Have More To Learn, Rose discusses what I conveyed to be a form of revising called Externalization. Rose states that Externalization allows the writer to see how clearly it reads, what it is conveying, and if it can be improved in any way. In conversation I feel Kathleen Yancey would introduce a similar yet interesting outlook on revising to Rose and Lamott because in Learning to Write Effectively Requires Different Kinds of Practice, Time and Effort, Yancey illustrates revision in the form of seeing if what you wrote was what you thought you were writing and the question of if it will fit with the perception of the audience. I thought that this was a pretty interesting outlook for Yancey to develop in the context of
In one semester of English 101 I have learned so many things about writing. I used to believe that writing was just putting words on paper, but have since learned that writing is much more than that, I now understand that writing is a way of exploring my mind and of making connections with other writers and readers. Over the course of the semester I have been learning to write in a way that uses the skills of reflection, critical thinking, and much more. I have used these skills to compose two academic essays that I am submitting in a portfolio to determine my final grade in English 101. In order to have a passing final grade my essays need to display skills I have learned in the course that are required by the Portfolio Assessment Rubric or
Many of the mistakes I would have deemed inconsequential in the past resembles glaring flaws now. The introduction and conclusion paragraphs were where the most work was done. In the introduction, I inserted a hook and blended the paragraph together. I accomplished this by adding transition words and changing the tense to fit the rest of the essay. In the conclusion, I completely started over. The original was bland, boring, and just plain repetitive. In the revised version, I outlined the essay, restated the thesis, and ended by suggestion other applications.
Throughout this semester I have learned many ways of writing through two main essays literacy narrative and comparison and contrast. These two essays have taught me how to correctly fix my comma splices, thesis statements, and capitalization. I have engaged in numerous learning material during this summer class. Many times when I thought it would be hard to work on those three developments I never gave up. I gain more positive feedback from my teacher because he pointed out most of my mistakes I made on both literacy narrative and comparison and contrast essays to help me understand what is it that I need to work on. My development as a writer became stronger.
Developing as a writer is an important skill you need for the rest of your life. My papers have not been the greatest but they do reflect me as a writer. I chose to revise the works that I thought I worked hard on and did my best to get my point across in a neat and consistent manner. The papers I chose were the literacy narrative, the synthesis essay, and the argument essay. I thought these papers really reflected how I have grown as a writer and developed better writing skills.
Gathering myself with all my work, and all the grammatical errors that cross through each page; I realized that those were simple mistakes that everyone creates. Surely I am a victim to myself; I leave most of my work unreformed in its pitiful expression, and not willing to change it. Each essay typed out, and sent was an extension of me; When the essays were handed back I did not welcome them with open eyes. My report “Samhain Celtic Festival,” is misinformed about what I know about it, and what information I took to explain it. My summary for “Just One More Game…” is misinterpreted, and lacks true focus on what actually needs to be summarized. I value my education, but what I did not include was how I was going to keep it all together.
In the beginning of English 101 I was what you call a novice writer a person who only wrote what they felt was required. However, certain techniques that I learned in English 101 made me realize that writing was not about filling requirements; it’s about speaking out, exploring and proving a point. “Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.” (Trimble, 17) In John Trimble’s quote he tries to point out that writing is something that you grow with and learn as you go along. I believe this growth was achieved with a technique that was introduced to me by my professor called repetitive revision. What I found out was that revision of your essays helps in recognizing your mistakes and enhances the flow of your essays. By providing me...
While brainstorming the process essay, I realized my weaknesses and planned better how to strengthen them. I knew simple grammatical errors and transitions were two of the most important ones I needed to correct. So while thinking of my topics to include in my essay, I thought of how each of them connected. In what ways can I draw connections between the three of these topics? Through asking myself this question, I transitioned from the paragraph of agency background to volunteer work with a more satisfying flow (“The Civic Responsibility” 2). While it took me longer to draft this essay, it ended up being worth it in the long run. I felt more accomplished of this paper and when I received feedback that required me to change minimal things; I knew it was worth
It was a task that took a significant amount of time and effort, but was truly an excellent learning experience. I found it intriguing how much the original essay can improve or modify over time; moreover, how different ideas flow through your brain each second. The revision of my essays taught me an enormous deal about writing and was genuinely pleasurable to do.
I believe it is important for any student who wants to do their best in a class to take a moment to evaluate their own work to determine the rate their writing is progressing and how they can continue to advance their writing. When I looked through my own work I asked myself “what have I learned this semester?” and “what do I still need to learn in order to improve my writing?”. Answering both these questions will help me with my last step of my self-evaluation, developing a plan to learn new skills.
Not all mistakes are the same; some are deeply ingrained to be corrected, while other mistakes can be corrected effortlessly. It is imperative to carefully analyze the mistakes learners make in the process of constructing/developing a system of language - English.
This portfolio was a little review for me for this semester. There are methods and terms that I forgot we discussed and putting together this portfolio reminded me of them. So when I put together the portfolio, I did not necessarily learn something, but I was reminded of how much valuable information I gained with in the 16 week period. What my portfolio shows is that I know the importance of using methods to back up sociological findings and I believe that is a strength. If methods of backing up sociological findings were not important, then there would be no point of the class. This information about different methods is essential to certain careers and help in other career paths that do not deal with sociology head on. As for self-improvement, I can improve on some of the details of some of the methods. I may know what the method is but proving an example of what it is may be the difficult part. Details are very important because it helps you further understand what you are studying. Also, even though I am a very observant person, I believe I should have participated more. Participating in discussion helps you understand what is being talked about because you are engaged. This may not be for everyone, but I believe it helps. With engagement, if you reciting wrong information, fellow peers can help in giving clarity on why that is the wrong information and give you the information you need to
Dr. Shook’s critiques directed me to revise for the lack of transitional phrases between main ideas within my essay, as well as my tendency to compose run-on sentences. Accordingly, I inserted transitions that connected the major points that my essay touched upon. In order to do so, I used phrases such as “furthermore” in order to create a better flow without compromising the important ideas that were essential in regards to properly communicating the context to my audience. By commencing the process of revising my first essay, I developed the understanding that one of my shortcomings as a writer at the beginning of the semester included compiling numerous ideas into one sentence, consequently making it too “heavy.” By taking corrective action, I separated sentences that surpassed three lines into two entities. I found that Informal Assignment 10: Writing with Clear Style, assisted in improving my understanding of how my style of writing assists in communicating to my audience. Initially, I failed to realize that clear communication is of the utmost importance in regards to becoming an astute college writer. I entered English 101 focusing on incorporating words with over three syllables to intelligently convey my argument instead of focusing on how clearly my argument will be received by my
My theme for this portfolio is construction and how it can be related to the writing process. At the beginning of this class I had no clue that my passion for engineering and building could be transferred into my writing, but I have learned through this class how to relate the formation of my essays to the construction of something more like a house. It starts with the foundation of the house, then each floor of the house, and finally the finishing touch, the roof. These levels of construction form direct parallels to the intro, body paragraphs, and conclusions of an essay. This idea not only has helped me create my own essays, but it also has a strong effect on how I look at others ' work. In my peer reviews, this mindset draws me to the structure of my peer 's paper and how well developed and organized each aspect of the paper is. Also, because this passion for building and how it has shaped me, I often look at how an author structures his work and what he uses to add to each of these different parts.