Throughout the year the I have constantly focused on getting better at making concise arguments that focus on my argument and are supported by my research. I started off not being very effective at making the best arguments because I made more generalized claims than specific points. This has made a lot of my writing disjointed and more like an overview with a lot of information, but as the semester moved on my arguments became more concise. This is very useful when it comes to making presentations and technical writing. As an engineer this will come in handy later down the road as technical writings become much more prominent in my professional career. Another goal that I was able to accomplish is the integration of different forms of …show more content…
Being able to make concise points became very important to making strong argument essays or blog posts. The most evident case of my writing becoming more pointed and argumentative is in my blog posts. Early in the semester I would write blog posts with a lot of different ideas jumbled together, but as the semester progressed I began to hone my blog posts into one or two point arguments with a lot of factual evidence backing it up. This change can be seen very clearly in my first blog post and my last blog post. In the first blog post I loosely linked Dziga Vertov idea of the keno-eye to progress being made in China. This argument lacked a lot of support and was not very clearly made due to the fact that ideas were not followed all the way to the end. However, in my last blog post I am able to make a very clear point and deliver it in a manner that is convincing and logical. In this blog post I argue how Rapture, a city of dreams, became a dystopia through means similar to how Nazi Germany became a monstrosity. This was a much better argument due to the fact that I made a coherent claim early in the blog post and followed that point enhancing the argument all the way to the end of the blog post. This change was a gradual process as shown by many points during this semester I relapsed into making …show more content…
In every writing piece that I completed I had some form of media to help compliment my writing and enhance my claims. This is an area where I was already fairly strong in the beginning of the semester, however, I did not use media in my writing very often. This changed this semester as integration of multimedia into my projects became a major point of emphasis. Each major project that I completed this semester had at least one form of media integrated into the project. These media forms helped to enhance my projects by either reinforcing my argument or by enhancing my presentation. The biggest example of multimedia integration reinforcing my argument was in my individual essay. In this essay I had a picture that showed the New York skyline from 1876 to 2013, and this helped me to make the argument that Sant’Elia had an influential role in creating this major change. This picture further helped with giving a visual of what I was trying to explain in my writing. The change in New York’s skyline is much easier to be shown than to be described. The visual aspect is why integrating multi-media pieces into my writing is important, and why through this semester I learned that I needed to use more multimedia in my writing. The addition of multimedia aspects into my writing helped with improving my arguments. However, I also used multimedia to enhance my presentations. The
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.
In the beginning of the semester, everyone was write down two goals that would be accomplished in the semester. Experience in writing papers showed me that I was weak in writing any type of papers. However, I was determined to stop repeating idea by rewording as well as writing information that is unnecessary. Also, I knew I had to improve on writing essays with no to very few mistakes, whether it is structurally or punctually. I am pleased with discontinuing any repetitions while writing, but am not so pleased about structuring and punctuating my sentences.
Prior to taking First Year Writing, my main approach to writing stood on the principles of a constant formalness, persuasiveness, and providing context. Often too much context. I believe this was primarily due to most of my prior academic writing prior was solely consisted of argumentative writing, which I see as a pro and con. The good thing is that I knew how to make debatable thesis, but not with much use of all of the rhetorical appeal of pathos. Now I believe I approach writing in a much more open way, in the sense that I believe that I am much more versed in writing for academia both formally and informally.
First, to start out talking about some of the styles and types of writing I have learned about, many of these things may be very common to some but, were new to me. The things we have gone over, to name a few are types and subtypes of arguments and how to present and argument. In these sections I have learned that there are different claim types of the arguments and that the need to understand who is addressing who in these arguments, in any given paper, is crucial if we are going to learn from the discussion. It is important to be able to use quotations and be able to paraphrase things that are being said in papers that are being researched to accurately understand the arguments and form an opinion of our own, as well as be able to construct
I don’t consider myself a gifted writer by any stretch, but with practice I myself have noticed improvements in my own writing. When not writing essays for classes, my time spent writing dwindles down to mere text messages, emails, and tweets. However, since beginning this class, I noticed that I am no paying more attention to rhetorical strategy in my own and others writings. When I write for a topic now I take take a moment to identify all the rhetorical strategies I am employing and what I can do to maximize the potential to improve my argument.
I found the article on “Argument” helpful because; the topic is understandable, did a good job to defined the topic, the order of relevant, provided specific examples how to improve my writing of college papers.
Both letter to the editor and editorial staff offer position that are supported by both facts and opinions. The letter explores to urges the new reusable bag ordinance while the editorial staff argues that they are serious about making Proposition 328 mandatory in every store. While both side make an acceptable case, it is clear that the letter provides a better argument.
Overall, this proposition has many good outcomes, varying from school funding being increased, to school debts lowering, to also keeping health care free for those low income families who are not able to afford a visit to the doctors office. Proposition 55 will continue to extend the positive aspects proposition 30 has been able to make and hopefully it even does greater things. Proposition 55 should be passed due to the fact that the funding heading to schools will be able to be used to give money to schools to hire more teachers while at the same time maintaining the same pay and benefits to its current teachers. This will support the education of the future generation and make sure they have the same advantages that the previous generations have been able to
Overall, I believe that I acquired a conceptual and practical knowledge of argumentation. The rhetorical situation worksheets that we were given in the beginning of the semester was a great refresher on all that I was taught on argumentation. It also helped me to understand the format that the professor would like us to introduce the articles and it’s Kairos before we analyze them. These worksheets definitely helped when it came to writing our first paper. However, although the worksheets made it easy to know what to put in the paper, it was not easy to actually put the paper together and make it flow. Therefore, when I wrote the paper it felt choppy in some places due to the fact
Before now, I use to write essays without taking into consideration the elements and rudiments that make an essay holistic and complete. I have always picked up a pen and paper and write without considering who will read my write-up and the structural development of my essay. Essay for me has always been nothing but pouring out my ideas on paper and ink. Until now, vagueness and ambiguity have been the major characteristic in my academic writings because I never thought the need for fluidity and coherency of my sentences. As such, I discovered that in some of my past write-ups, ideas are presented in choppy, ambiguous and frivolous manner which is one of the major reasons for my
Initially my writing lacked structure and a controlling purpose which caused my ideas to be incoherent and hard for the reader to understand. These difficulties could be attributed to the fact that I am an art student plagued with the disorganization and non-verbal method of an artist’s brain. Being this way, interpreting and conveying my thoughts accurately and eloquently into the assigned writings was fairly tough. However, during the course of English 101 I was able to identify my weaknesses through the aid of writing communities such as peer review sessions and conferences with my professor. With the help from these resources and the writing process I learned to better organize my essays and maintain a controlling purpose in order to help my audience
In my argument paragraphs I feel like I have really been able to lure in the audience and been able to persuade them. For example, in my OpEd article I was able to state my claim and back it up for the audience. Like when I talked about how sanctions were not affecting the north korean government. I feel like my narrative writings do need some improvement. I feel like I need to improve on dialog because I manly talk about about my thoughts and I have very minimal dialog. For example in my personal narrative I many talked about my actions and had very minimal dialogue when In real life there was a lot. I only had four lines of dialogue when I should have had at least 10. I also think that I have improved a lot in my analysis writings. I think I have improved because it's like an argument because you are trying to persuade people. For example in my analysis of a stylistic technique I was able to state my claim and back it up with examples form the text. In conclusion I feel like my different paragraphs have had strength and weaknesses in different
One skill I greatly improved upon was my ability to gather and organize information. On my first paper, Arguing a Position (AaP), I did very poorly on this. The paper was arguing that the mass surveillance by the United States government had gone too far and was suppressing individuals’ freedoms. I spent a long time researching for this essay. When I went to sort through it all I had found that I had gathered way too much information and I had not organized it in any useful way. This put me behind the rest of the class in the writing process. I was still typing down to the very last day, while everyone else was editing, which hurt the quality of my essay. I did, however, learn from these mistakes. In my second essay, Proposing a Solution (PaS), I proposed a solution to the algae problem in Western Lake Erie. I feel I did much better at researching for this paper. I collected less information and only kept the information that I knew would be useful in writing the essay. This saved time which allowed me to put more effort into the quality of the writing. For this reason my PaS essay was much better than my AaP. This improvement shows that I have improved enough to earn credit for this course.
As a writer I see my strengths in creating thesis and topic sentences. I always focus on creating strong thesis and topic sentences because I feel that they can be an overall guide to my body paragraphs. I think I am strong in making thesis/topic sentences because I make them first and then do everything else later. I find my evidence based on my thesis and for some cases topic sentences then I proceed with analysis; doing the thesis first also makes the essay process slightly easier. Some areas of improvement that I need are in creating good conclusions and in developing my arguments in my paragraphs. Creating good conclusions is hard for me as I sometimes struggle to answer the what the implications of my argument are. For instance my typical
If there is one skill that we could all improve on, it would definitely have to be our argumentation skills. At some point in your life, you will find yourself having to defend yourself through argumentation. Someone might make a claim that you strongly disagree about, or vice versa. It is very important that you have the proper skills to argue so you don’t end up looking foolish and unintelligent. It is also important because you could find yourself in a position where something important is on the line, such as a career, or a special relationship. Some people say the only way to improve your argument is to speak louder, repeat your thesis, and get angry with the person you’re arguing with. You’re better off not even arguing if that is the way you argue. Again, it is very important to improve your argumentation skills. Students seeking guidance in arguing should enroll into an Eng 111 course. The Eng 111 course spends a whole week emphasizing the importance of arguing. It is a very good investment for your life.