Becoming An Effective Writer

Upon entering Columbia College, writing was one of my weaker areas. It was very important that I gained the necessary knowledge and confidence to become a better writer. I didn’t know how to express myself and felt as though my writing was not my interest. As a result of taking English 101, I have gained a better understanding on how to properly research and build a satisfactory paper. Every paper that was assigned seemed like a struggle to complete. Before entering this class, I did not know the meaning of a thesis or why it was important, however, I obtained this skill quickly. I noticed that every paper has an argument and the thesis helps clarify the rebuttal. Now, I have a new outlook on writing. It’s a way to express my thoughts and allow others to see things through my eyes. There is no doubt that I still have a long way to go, but I know if I continue to write, I will get better. Just as I developed more skills in class, the various papers assigned helped to better structure the writer in me. In addition, the subject areas were not only interesting, but very informative and made it much easier to write about my experiences.

Like transforming from a caterpillar to a butterfly, my writing style transformed from something mediocre to something quite exceptional. In high school, even when I took advanced placement English and Literature courses, I was never good at writing. My writing would lack structure, reasoning, syntax, and a well-defined thesis statement. My inadequate grades on writing assignments lowered my self-esteem, so I assumed I would never enjoy writing papers because I believed I could never improve. However, since attending a university my writing style has improved far beyond my expectation. My EN 101 course enhanced my understanding of the different ways I could approach my writing. Also, it enhanced my comprehension of outlines to complete assignments. Investing quality time into my writing made a substantial difference because I became a stronger writer. Through the late nights, constant revisions, and agonizing head traumas, I learned that my writing is truly spectacular whenever I incorporate well-defined thesis statements, provide sufficient supporting evidence, and maintain a clear focus in my assignments.

I immensely struggled when writing. Taking my scrambled thoughts and uncoordinated analysis and converting it into clean and understandable words on a page was arduous. I could not express my thoughts in proper academic format. I understood the importance of writing to every subject. It was essential that I learn to condense my ideas and feeling into coherent written word. After much debate, I decided that the best way to improve my writing skills was to take an advanced English course.

This highlights the importance of drafting, reviewing and editing to produce better academic and professional writing. Grellier & Goerke (2014) remind authors that writing is for the benefit of readers, and clear meaning and engaging content shows respect to the audience.

Writing an essay in college is a big challenge for most students, including myself. It involves strong critical thinking and a meticulous process. After narrowing down and selecting a topic, we then need to establish the main point and how we want to deliver our opinions, ideas, or visions to our audience. We want to create a piece of writing that delivers a clear message, with strong and relevant details, to support the main point. We need to think and plan thoroughly, write, review, and rewrite before we get the end result. This is why drafting, reviewing, revising, and editing are vital parts of writing.

A learner’s ability to communicate effectively through writing to his/her target audiences is a major prerequisite for academic success. It is also a major pillar of success in one’s career across all areas of practice. Even though, writing clearly is critical to one’s academic and career success, I have not always loved writing. In fact, for a long time I despised writing. At one point, I had a feeling that my writings skills were bound to remain stagnated throughout my life. However, time has proven that I was wrong. My attitude and outlook towards virtually all genres of writing has changed positively. The various helpful methods I have been exposed to by my English teachers through different grades have helped me

Life is a cycle of learning and the dissemination of what we’ve learned. In each day of our lives we learn something new to add to our list of skills and knowledge. When I first entered university, I thought the writing courses were useless and just a waste of time since we all can write. Later, however, I realized how those courses are beneficial in improving our critical thinking and communication skills not only the style of writing.

Typically, after being assigned an essay, my first step used to be sitting in front of the computer and starting to type aimlessly with no specific goal in my mind. This process usually ends up taking hours, and I do not end up accomplishing much at the end. This year, I plan to formulate a new process that will hopefully improve my writing exceptionally. Breaking down the essay writing into pieces will result in quality content. The writing process that I devised incorporates some of the basic elements of writing such as: prewriting, revising, and editing.

Before entering class, I deemed myself a competent writer. However, I quickly discovered that my writing involved mediocre writing precepts. In contrast to the principles of scholarly discourse, my writing held the tenets of conversational writing and did not meet academic standards. Furthermore, much of my poor writing involved deep-rooted habits that were humbling and challenging. Passive voice, unneeded words, long sentences, were a few of the obstacles that impeded my journey toward effective writing. However, using peer reviews and an editing checklist I slowly began improving my skills as a competent writer. I also found that reading concerning writing provided supplementary methods in improving my skills as a scholarly writer.

Everyone has their own approach to writing, but there are always ways to learn new methods to improve their writing style. Personally, I have experimented with different approaches to improve my writing every year. However, I have realized that I still have a lot of room for improvement and exploration. After reading Foley, Murray, Lamott, Elbow, and Flower, I gained a better understanding in how to improve my writing and identifying the mistakes and styles I have adopted in my writing that are not as effective. Thus, these articles have explained many strategies and styles such as the five paragraph essay, steps to having a good writing process, and the way of revising a piece of work until it seems like the best product. In short, revising

A learner’s ability to communicate effectively through writing to his/her target audiences is a major prerequisite for academic success. It is also a major pillar of success in one’s career across all areas of practice. Even though, writing clearly is critical to one’s academic and career success, I have not always loved writing. In fact, for a long time I despised writing. At one point, I had a feeling that my writings skills were bound to remain stagnated throughout my life. However, time has proven that I was wrong. My attitude and outlook towards virtually all genres of writing has changed positively. The various helpful methods I

Now that I have received my graded paper my analyses is that there are multiple areas that I need improvement. Such as my mechanics with comma, apostrophes, and Semi-Collins. Also I need to work on my word choice and write a more college level paper. The Other Struggle I have is with past and present tenses. Although I have noticed some strengths in my writing, such as a clear thesis statement and great conclusions. Therefore I will look into the different opportunities that I have available to become an efficient writer.

There are many different things a person can do to improve their skills as a writer. Some are as simple as read more and write a lot. A good strategy that I use is to write down all of my ideas as soon as I think of them. Having these written down helps because they can inspire me and help me go directly into writing. That blank piece of paper staring at you may be intimidating, but don’t think about it, just start writing. A really good way to improve your writing skills is to practice.

Learning to be an adequate writer is something I strive for but don’t feel I have yet accomplished. In the past, I can remember spending countless hours sitting and thinking what I should write about. I think my biggest problem is figuring out how to actually put on paper what I am thinking. I am also concerned that the paper I write will not fully express what I am actually trying to say. I have found that if I am in a situation where I have to think of something on the spot or I am timed, I feel very overwhelmed and freeze up. However, I feel one of my strengths would be that I feel fairly comfortable with the rules of grammar and I enjoy that part of English. I can remember in high school I always did really well on my grammar test

Over the course of this past semester, my ability to write has improved tremendously. Prior to undertaking this course, my expertise in writing was not as fine-tuned as it should have been. I had never previously been enrolled in a class specifically tailored to writing-- which was quite clear. Upon reading my past works, it becomes apparent that my writing style consisted of fluff, small words, and inconsistently structured sentences. These problems have, for the most part, been remedied with the coursework I have tackled in College Writing. Rather than long, drawn out papers that take an eternity to reach the primary point, my recent work is much nicer in terms of composition and grammar. I credit these improvements to the three primary