Developing My Writing Skills

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.

A good writer is someone who knows how to write well, have ideas to put on paper and write a well-organized essay that answers the question that a professor gives to you. I identify my own writing by not being good because I have issues sometimes getting words on paper, organizing the essay and my grammar is not very well. The methods that are effective for improving my own writing is practice writing and have someone proof read my work. I am in COM100L because my grammar is not good and my writing on paper is all over the place. My expectation for this course is to improve my grammar when I write essays and fix my mistakes when I write.

Whether you are in a business school, college, or have a professional position, communication, through good writing skills, is essential for success. Employers spend billions annually training new and existing employees to write effectively. (Simkin, Crews, & Groves, 2012). Individuals entering institutions of higher education must enroll in writing courses to prepare them for success in their studies. Why then, do so many Americans not possess effective writing skills? A number of reasons seem to factor into the decline of these skills.

Rain is crucial to all living things from every walk of life. Rain brings destruction and regrowth, leaving a clean slate and a new beginning. I selected this theme because while the focal point and characters change throughout my writing the constant idea throughout my pieces consisted of moving on, growing, and starting a new beginning. I think that lately my writing has been full of an unknown tone, an excitement/ fear of growing up and starting over. I believe this is all because I've reached a point in my life where I’m going to college and moving away. I’m delighted to be able to go out on my own and experience new things, but it’s kind of nostalgic to know that my childhood is coming to a close. However I’m aware that not all people

It has always been difficult for me to find a writing process that works well for me. Over the past years, I have struggled with writing papers and thinking creatively. However, I feel as if I have established a writing process that works for me.

As an eager learner, I often took classes that I felt would challenge me and my writing style. After taking many English courses like History of the English language and English Grammar, I wanted to learn another style of writing, which led me to journalism. The journalism program made me focus on developing my writing and researching skills to deliver reliable information. In the program we learned by doing and were expected to report both on and off campus. I was required to take an Editing course where we learned about copy editing, proofreading and basic editorial skills. In the class we would analyze articles for accuracy, libel, and tightening.

Three strategies for improving my writing are to expand my vocabulary, proofread my work and read more than I already do. These strategies will help improve my overall quality of work. Expanding my vocabulary would be a great way to improve my writing. At this age, the majority of my writing will most likely be essays, therefore the texts I compose should be sophisticated and clear, so that I can still make my arguments, convey my ideas and get my points across in a way readers will understand.

This semester has been an eye opener to me about how I formulate ideas and outlines to my papers and visual works. My writing style and skills have gone through many changes throughout English 150 but by far there have been three areas where I have seen the most improvement. How I compose and formulate my works, using certain resources and how I integrated them into my paper, how I edit those works, and how well I use the advice and guidance from my peers to help me revise or complete my works.

The three writing principles I would most like to improve are short sentence usage, limit prepositional phrases, and avoid redundancy. I am consistently extending my sentences and combining what could be two sentences or perhaps even three, However, know that I am aware that readers comprehend shorter sentences better I will strive to short the length (Cardon, 2013). However, I will be mindful not to make my writing too broken up.

Considering English is my second language, my writing and communication skills are decent . From my perspective, my advantage is grasping the main idea and developing innovate concepts. Normally, I think deeply and deliberate wholly before expressing my opinions since I read a lot in psychology and communication in order to be a businessman. However, my weakness is obviously on vocabulary, grammar and original English expression. Positively, I believe that I am improving my

My main goal for the year was to improve my writing and I do believe I have accomplished that. I am especially proud of how my introduction and conclusion paragraphs have improved. I never knew where to begin with those, but now I feel much more confident when I sit down to write those parts of my essay. I also feel like I did improve on grammar, which is my weakest part of writing an essay. I still have a lot I can improve on in all aspects of my writing, but I am very thankful for this class and the feedback I have received on all my papers. I would like to wish the rest of you good luck on your finals and I hope you all have a great

In my writing there is not just one specific spot where I could use improvement skills. The main problem that I would like to focus on is my grammar. As I write something then read my sentences, I just need some help on trying to get my sentence structure to flow better. Getting idea or topics in the correct order is no problem, but what I need is for my writing to flow like a good song. Of course when its your writing it doesn't sound like what you think it does to others. Also I feel that my lack of know transition phases plays a part in that as well. Sometimes the only words that come to my mind when writing is "and" and "as well". Which is not words you would want to have your essay filled with.

As a student I feel that my writing skills are far from what they could be. While growing up there were always research papers and book reviews due for almost every class, but I’m not alone there because everyone had to do that. Writing has never been one of my strong suits and for how often I will need it, I need to get better at it.

My writing skills which I have worked on over the few months I have been in English 102 have changed quite a bit in my opinion. There are many things which I have improved upon that were amongst my weaker writing skills when the year began. On the opposite side of that point, there are also many things which I still need to improve upon if I want to truly elevate my writing to a level that I will be confident in. Finally, I have gained new skills outside of writing from this class, particularly the activities which we did in class at various points throughout the year. These things all cumulate together to give me an appreciation of English courses which I did not previously have.

All throughout my years of schooling, I’ve had just about, one paper that was about one page long, due every year. My papers never had to be more than one page in length. Therefore, I did not have to do much writing or do many essays. Surely not enough to remember any of the assignments. Writing has never been something I enjoyed doing, so I never bothered to many any memories of my writing experiences. I did not think it was necessary to remember any of them since I only had to do them to get a grade. The only writing experience I remember was the first assignment I had in this English 100 class about a writing experience. All week long, I sat there thinking about what to write about, but nothing came to mind as a topic. Then, one thing came to mind, but it was so very vague, I could not write the length that was needed for the assignment. I could only think of a few sentences to write for it. After sitting for a few moments longer, I thought, how about I write about how difficult it was for me to write this essay before it was due.