At the beginning of the semester in Eng 121, I knew that there would be much to learn and many areas to improve. In high school I was not a strong writer, so taking Eng 121, in my first semester of college, was intimidating. Yet I quickly adjusted and was able to grow as a writer. My greatest accomplishment was understanding myself as a writer, because of this I quickly learned my weaknesses and strengths. After I learned my weaknesses I was able to prevent or go back and fix my mistakes, this allowed me to improve my writing immensely. Luckily, over the past few months I was able to learn the new 8th edition of MLA and identify my weaknesses, such as writing clear and concise sentences. The papers I chose to submit are ones of which I was able to prevent or correct mistakes I knew that I struggled with as a writer because of my Eng 121 class. The very first paper I wrote this semester was a descriptive persuasive essay, in this essay I continually struggled with adding unnecessary words and filling my introduction and concluding paragraph, however, with feedback and several revisions, I was able …show more content…
Another paper I included was my research essay, it about why camels should become a common livestock in the USA. I used the 8th edition MLA works cited page format and improved my in-text citations greatly. For example, “The reason camels have so few enemies is because, according to the article Ships of the Desert they, “have a reputation for being [an] ill-tempered animal that spit[s] and kick[s],” but when not threatened, “camels are generally good-tempered, intelligent, patient, and even affectionate” (“Desert: Camels”).” Although I initially struggled, Eng 121 helped me develop the skills and learn the format to write in-text citations from reliable sources. This skill will allow me to continue to incorporate quotes from sources into my future
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.
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.
For my Final Reflection Essay I attempted to focus on the most obvious adjustments I made from writing high school papers to producing college level essays. This approach compelled me to examine a few of the papers I submitted in high school and look back on the steps I took to write them. By reviewing my previous work I realized that during Dr. Kennedys English 111 class I have effectively learned how to apply an outline, utilize research, and incorporate that research into my final paper. English 111 has helped me to understand the importance of the multiple steps of writing a great college level essay by forcing me to complete each step individually. My overall performance in this class has been above average and I have really demonstrated dedication to improvement.
In the past three months I feel like I have accomplished a great deal. As the semester comes to an end I find myself reflecting not only how I have survived the first semester but also what I have learned. The most important thing I have learned so far is how to become a better writer. I did not think it could really happen to me. I did not think I could handle all the work. I did not think I could actually become a better writer. Some how after all the hours of writing, and putting effort into the papers that I wrote this semester, I became a better writer. I did this because I concentrated on two very important areas, with the attitude of, if I could just become better in those then I would become a better writer. With help from an awesome teacher and a reliable tutor I have become a better writer by improving my skills in the areas of procrastination and content.
In my opinion, over the years, my current writing skills have improved. Beforehand, I used to have difficulties understanding the proper format of sentences and had dragged sentences on. However, my current writing skills are becoming more developed. The composition of my writing has become more concise, clear, and understandable. Furthermore, some of the dominant skills my writing demonstrates is; avoiding slang, jargon, and transitions. With each of these skills in mechanical writing, my papers have become more advanced, more concise, and able to follow the primary goal. So, from these writing mechanics, my personal writing has matured. This allows my personal writing to evolve further. Nevertheless, my current writing skills have improved by becoming more concise, clear and understandable.
this area but I’m going to improve on it. The process of using multiple drafts has
Although I know there is still much to improve on in my writing, I feel as though I have made tremendous strides for my first semester. I have grown as a writer, and I believe I have the potential to be a great writer. Throughout my many years left here at The College of New Rochelle, I will continue to work hard so that my final year here at the college I can look back at my writings from freshman year to see my improvement. Writing 101 has boosted my confidence and has made me a better writer today. I will take this confidence along with determination to my writing 102 class, and I hope the professor will continue the molding process that Professor smart has started.
What was most surprising to me most about writing in college, it’s the fact that it’s more fun and it had a lot more interesting topics to write about. When I went to high school I always almost got a C or a D in writing but now that I’m in college I don’t feel that I struggle as much as I did in high school. But when I think about why I am doing so much better now in writing, I think its due to the fact that I have so much more help from tutors and better teachers. I’m also surprised that I’m getting A’s and B’s now in writing. During the course of English 102, the most demanding paper that I came across was the paper 3.
After completing this project, I have learned to make my introduction, draw the reader’s attention and also, make a good argument between what I agreed or disagreed with. Doing research and using actual facts on my topic improved the style of the paper. It improved my style by making the reader notice everything I came up with that has evidence behind it, which makes my paper look very pleasant. In addition, seeing the way people observed the situation from a different viewpoint helped me understand where the authors were coming from on the topic.
One skill that I wish I had time to improve on is citing sources in MLA style. Through the course, I refused to seek help from my professor until week seven, one thing I regret doing. that could have allayed the fear and doubt I had about this course. Any questions I had could be cleared up as the course progressed. My essays through the subsequent weeks have demonstrated my strength and weaknesses. I do not have many strengths when it comes writing, but still I consider my greatest strength in writing to be being able to clearly understand the prompt and answer it correctly, especially with the analysis essays. I think this is just because I spend most of the scarce time on hand just to think about the prompt, for example, when I was preparing for my rhetorical analysis essay on globalization I thoroughly read both article on globalization by both Kwame Anthony Appiah and franklin Foer .An obvious struggle I have as a writer is organization and transitions. I tend to jump from one topic to another and sometimes cover. I should have used more transitional words in between sentences and paragraphs to make my reader understand the logic of my paper. I have not had enough writing experience and the writing process is difficult for me. I do sometimes admit that it takes days to complete one assignment, but it will be worth it when I become a proficient
Writing is an important part of everyone’s life, whether we use it in school, in the workplace, as a hobby or in personal communication. It is important to have this skill because it helps us as writers to express feelings and thoughts to other people in a reasonably permanent form. Formal writing forms like essays, research papers, and articles stimulates critically thinking. This helps the writer to learn how to interpret the world around him/her in a meaningful way. In college, professors motivate students to write in a formal, coherent manner, without losing their own voice in the process. Improving your writing skills is important, in every English class that’s the main teaching point; to help students improve their writing skills. Throughout my college experience I have acknowledge that
Throughout high school I dealt with MLA format which I never truly understood because it was not emphasized on. Now that I am in college, however, it is a completely different story. I’m not going to say that I struggled immensely with APA format, but it did take some getting used to. Instead of freewriting where formats are thrown out the window for idea creation, I had to stick with set rules on how a paper should look and how information should be organized and presented. After a few papers with the grand finale of the “research supported cause/effect essay,” citing sources and notating references seemed much easier. Being able to use different techniques to cite sources will allow my future papers to flow and allow the reader to not be bored to death. Referencing sources properly will keep my papers from being flagged as plagiarized and authors will get their due credit because I know I would not like my work to be claimed as someone else’s. With all of the writing in the future I will need to do for college and my business writing, Writing 101 has ensured a bright start for all of
Although you might not know me yet, I can tell you that in these past few years of writing essays and papers, I have learned a lot about who I am as a writer and know that you will appreciate my work in the future. My previous English teachers have taught me many techniques about writing a good essay and ways I could improve my work. They have given me lots of advice, but also told me things that I’ve disagreed with. Even though I’m not a big fan of writing essays, I truly believe that since I started writing in grade school until now, I have improved as a writer, so much, that whenever I look back and read a paper that I wrote, I feel surprised and shocked due to the differences compared to my work nowadays. Overall, even though I might not be the best writer in the world, I still work hard each year to improve my writing and use many techniques to show my teachers what type of a writer I am.
At the end of this class and this reflection period of these papers. I realised that I have become a better writer than I have ever been before, because I was finally able to take and recognize my mistakes in my papers. Which allowed me to to see where I needed to fix next to become the best writer I can be, which was shown to me during this time. Now with my new weapons of grammer, organizations, and MLA format I have a great foundation to propel my
As I look back on my schooling I can’t believe how many papers I’ve written throughout my life. Naturally as I’ve grown up, my writing has developed from learning how to write sentences all the way up to the pages of essays that consist of deeper criteria. I know for a fact that I’m a better writer now than I was before. College writing is more challenging and I’ve had to learn how to adjust to it.