As I look back into my high school years, I thought I wrote papers well. But then coming into a college environment, my papers were mediocre. By overlooking at my past papers, I found that they were unorganized, sloppy and had bad use of diction. From now on, I will use the tools I learned in English 1100-40 as a foundation for the future papers I intend on writing in college. Following the criteria of organizing ideas so that they flow, impacting the reader with diction and also by being creative, will help become an ideal writer. Following the criteria of staying motivated in short and long term goals, taking responsibility for actions and finally the ability to study well will help me develop into a supreme student.
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.
At the beginning of the semester, I had a different idea of what is considered as good writing. In my first rough draft for my first essay, “Post-secondary education and cultural backgrounds”, I demonstrated mostly of my preconceived idea of what good writing is suppose to be. I tried to sound intelligent by asking rhetorical questions and using big words improperly. I noticed that there was no harmony and organization on my essay as a whole. I had no idea what MLA was. With the help of the Writing Center and my determination on continually revising my essay, my scattered ideas developed into cohesive statements. I learned the use of topic sentences, thesis, reference page, page number, and other given structures on writing a paper. As I tried to develop my skills to becoming a good writer, my writing and knowledge has slowly grew into the accepted academic text.
My journey through high school as a writer has been quite fruitful. I have refined many of weaknesses, including organizations and introductions, and am still perfectly some as I go, like time management and conclusions. I learned that there is no such thing as a perfect paper; there is always room for improvement in my writing skills. Also, I have learned to see my writing through different perspectives and portray abstract concepts in my work. In the years to come, I hope to learn even more from my instructors and develop a unique writing
Writing is an excellent practice because the benefits gained are essential to an individual’s success in a job, or just conveying their ideas through words. Within the semester we have written three major papers, and have rewritten two of those papers. In each paper I discovered new ways to get information, and have gained more experience in sculpting a paper. Obtaining this new knowledge of how to present my ideas in different writing styles will help me expand my range in how I can write, and essentially allow me to be better prepared for upcoming jobs following my college education. I can safely say that with the papers from this semester and their mistakes that dealt with minor grammar errors, awkward sentence structures, and oversimplifying
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.
Throughout taking college courses I can say that I have experienced all types of writing experiences. I have taken many different types of courses, for example, philosophy, psychology, western civilization, Composition I, Composition II, and English 112. Even though it was writing papers in each course, I had to develop different techniques in each course. In my composition courses and in English courses, the course work was very similar within the types of writing I was assigned. Many of them included analyses, research, and drafting. You use the research and information you find about a certain topic and you develop a paper about it, but putting information from multiple sources into your paper. Overall I have had many different writing experiences
As a second language learner I have never expected myself to be a perfect writer throughout the semester. Even If English was my first language still, I would not be a perfect writer. It is not about first or second language, it is about how well I understand the learning objectives. Then organizing and writing with my own ideas and putting them in my paper. I am going to be honest, I am not good at English subject and English subject is my strongest weakness than the other subjects. In this paper I will discuss and analyze my own writing, reflecting on the ways that my writing has improved throughout the semester.
Each of these types of writings are unique and challenging. I definitely had to step out of my comfort zone and explore new ideas so that I could improve my writing ability. For example, I used peer review to help steer me in the right direction on a few of my essays. It was nice to have fellow peers commenting and criticizing my paper. I felt getting others perspectives helped me get a broader aspect on different thoughts and ideas, so that my paper would appeal to readers of all kinds.
I learned the importance of making several drafts for one paper. Every writer can always make improvements because a paper is never perfect on the first draft. At least three drafts should be made before submitting. Secondly, it is important for ideas to be organized. One idea should smoothly transition into the next for the reader to easily understand the author’s arguments. Thirdly, it is helpful to have others give corrections on the student’s paper. Asking the professor or peers for critiques allows to see possible errors and ways to make the paper