College-Level Writing Process

I asked ten freshmen students in my class what are some of the difficulties do they believe they face when writing a college essay? It took them five minutes to answer this question. As I suspected, some of the answers I receive has something in common. Some of the students’ responses, the difficulties they face to write an essay are grammatic errors, punctuations, sentence structure, and organization. Another key thing to remember is that they have problem with wording the sentences correctly. So, the reader can understand the writing clearly. Likewise, many students have details and ideas on paper. But sometimes don’t know how to organize the writing process. Other student said that they have trouble to start the first paragraph and and have a lack of motivation. I t takes them long time to start the essay. Furthermore, some answers were interested. Few students don’t want to stress their self. So, they never think to revise their final draft. One of the problems I receive is college vocabulary. One student response that his mind stuck on high school vocabulary and don’t know how to use college level vocabulary which make his essay weak. Similarly, I am really struggling with grammar error, sentence structure, run on-sentence, and organization.

At 11:15 on Monday, August 17, 2015, my first official college class, English 1101, began. In general, I had no idea what college classes would be like let alone how college English would be. Even though this class taught me a great deal in one semester, it took a large amount of time and effort to make the adjustment from high school. The simplistic writing style of high school was put to rest the moment the first college English class began. As a result, I learned quickly that college writing is complex and less systematic than high school writing. Five paragraph essays with three strict body paragraphs were no longer the norm for writing. Even though my professor helped guide my writing, I was no longer coddled through the whole writing

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.

Essays are inevitable. No matter what career path someone chooses, they will be obligated to write essays. Presenting a well-written essay may mean landing that “dream” job or being accepted into one’s “dream” college. Struggling with essays is a common experience that may be alleviated with guidance and hard work. The writing process for an essay consists of multiple steps that, if followed correctly, will result in a well-written paper.

In my first paper, “High School Students – Prepared or not Prepared” I struggled most with making my paragraphs five sentences or longer. When I was writing my paper I began to realize that I was only putting three or four sentences in each paragraph. After writing the entire paper I became aware that I did not have enough words in my paper to meet the 1000 word word-count. I began to read over my paper to figure out why it was not long enough. I realized that the second paragraph in my paper started out with only three sentences, which was not enough to be considered a strong paragraph (“High School Students – Prepared or not Prepared”

Using the four steps in essay writing will help you make your essay a better paper to read (Bethel University, 2014). By having a point, supportive evidence, organized with specific evidence, and write sentences clear and free of errors.

Your initial paragraph was a huge block of text. I have broken them down into smaller chunks. In future, you should use this technique also to enhance readability.

I actually found each of the following tips helpful and each in turn when proofreading my essay:

     Finally, you should edit your essay for its contents and style. Editing is one of the important stages of the writing process. It is as important as prewriting, outlining, and drafting. Revising includes checking the structure, the grammatical accuracy, and the contents of the paper. Editing involves rewriting the paper to make it clearer and stronger. By editing, you can make sure whether your paper is unified, supported, and well organized. Also, revising which is included in editing, helps you to correct errors in grammatical mistakes, punctuation, and spelling. Of course, it is very helpful to use a dictionary to do the revising and editing. After the editing, you can finally type your essay to make it complete.

Over the course of the English 1B class, my eyes opened to new techniques and to consider new ways to improve my writing. Throughout this course, my class was assigned four essays all of which asking different questions. Some of the essay were more difficult than another because it required more work and research; however, writing these essays helped me to grow as a better writer. During these essay writing process, I was able to grab a sense of what is and what is not essential when writing an essay and to remember to avoid diverging from the essay topic itself.

In order to gain a sense of familiarity for first- year college writing, a small portfolio of the student’s work was submitted to help high schools students become more prepared for the college writing techniques. A college writing course is much different than a high school class. Although the course is only a semester long, instead of the traditional year long class high schools provide, I have learned how to write a stronger essay in a shorter amount of learning time. For this portfolio my previous work is highlighted to use as a spectacle into what college level writing really entails. For this first- year college writing course, I discovered writing can have different opinions, needs reliable sources, and is more related to real world concerns. This course has provided a structure to excel in becoming a better writer.

Back in my high school years, I had difficulty in writing. Even in Portuguese, my native language, it was very stressful when I have a writing assignment. As I saw myself as a logical person with zero creativity, the writing was not my favorite subject. My writing experience came from the last six months of learning English in the US when I was, finally, taught to write in a logical and organized way. Learning a structured approach focused on writing as a process, helped me to clarify my idea about how to write. But, does the college-level writing and common-writing mean the same? What differentiates college-level writing from other types of writing? What should we expect from a college-level writing? While there is not a single definition of college-level writing, the different meanings, and controversial interpretations show us its importance.

Professional scholars have their own perspective on what college level writing is and how it is done. A various number of scholars believe that college writing consists of well articulate writing skills and having the authority to make your work dynamic in every aspect. Well articulate writing skills consist of knowing how to explain yourself with legitimate grammar, and having the authority is knowing automatically how you are going to write, and having the ability to write coherently. Scholars like Elizabeth Wardle and Donald M. Murray have explained what college level writing is in their knowledge and how to distinguish those writing skills in your essay. College level writing in Elizabeth and Donald’s view consist of finding your identity.

Even though writing is part of our daily lives, being able to put together an academic paper is not as simple as sending a text. Actual college writing can prove to be a lot more difficult and confusing if one does not know what exactly is needed to write a college paper. Writing An essay qualified as college material incorporates strong relation to the audience, knowing one’s identity and authority, and the process of the writing itself.

There have been several improvements in my writing process as I have been able to practice and learn more concerning essay writing. This has helped to improve upon the basic knowledge I had about the subject, as I used to find it stressful when writing essays. Writing requires certain processes that enable one to create a good and concise essay, such as, pre-writing, organizing, drafting, revising, and editing (Sims, Chan, and Sethuram 374). These steps are necessary as they help one to generate ideas, plan the essay, make it easy to comprehend, and also use time wisely. When organizing the essay, it should have a topic sentence or thesis in the introduction, a body, and then the conclusion followed by salutations if required. With several improvements in these areas, I have also been able to work on the grammar aspect of the essay, including spelling, punctuations, and other areas. This helps make the audience or readers easily understand the essay.