How My Sources Influenced My Writing

Writing used to be one of my strengths, but throughout my coursework in this semester, it was challenging to take the first step to approach my first draft. I was always taken a long time to think about the thesis and introduction because I personally felt both were very important for the entire essay in order to attract readers. Merely, I could not make my thesis clear and good as always. Therefore, I would get some inspiration from my friends or tutors, or watched drama and news; this would be my first step to write a first draft. Unlike in High School, we have assigned at least 1200 words essay, and greatly opened my mind to develop a deeper understanding of each topic. For my writing habit, when I first look at the topic, I would think about what professor taught us in class or search some websites for stimulating more inspiration. Especially working on critical response essay or opinion essay, these two types of essays were required to write an argument and to be more thoughtful. It is difficult to identity some controversy topics in my knowledge as an English learner. Although I have always been a thinker and I

When you begin to write it is best to start with a process. Planning, drafting, and developing are very important steps when writing. Once someone had decided on a topic to write about they need to make sure they understand what audience they are writing for. Doing so will make it easier to get into the minds of the people who will be reading the paper. This helps with deciding how the paper should be written. The next step would be to write a rough draft. This will be the basis of the paper. I find that writing a rough draft helps me get the main points across before I begin to lose my train of thought. I also find that it's a lot easier to write a rough draft if I have a list of ideas already written down that I will want to discuss. After finishing the rough draft, revising is the last step.This is when you rewrite or revise paragraphs, sentences, main points, and even your thesis. When writing I tend to write down everything I am thinking of, then I go back and rearrange or edit if something doesn't

During my English courses throughout high school, I learned many things from writing simple journals, research papers, and a single term paper. During high school, I was laid back and procrastinated for much of my work. During the latter part of high school when I wrote my term paper my senior year, I found out that working a little every night writing a few paragraphs helped me out greatly. I was not just throwing something together just to get the grade and the paper finished. I spent time on the paper and

Taking a look back at my past writing assignments and drafts for each one, I can clearly see the improvement in how they are organized. My first draft for writing assignment 1 was basically one long paragraph. I clearly remember Mr. Bogdaniec’s advice on how to separate and create individual paragraphs that only contain one topic or main idea. Also with his handouts on writing an introductory paragraph and how to write the conclusion paragraph were extremely helpful in putting together my first writing assignment in this class. I followed the steps on brainstorming and then steps for creating a plot, and didn’t feel overwhelmed and confused as I had

Without having someone else to look over your work, it is hard to realize what you are doing wrong. When someone else reads your paper, especially having not read it before, they can easily identify your mistakes, whether it be punctuation or spelling errors. I strongly believe that when peer review is taken advantage of and used correctly, peer reviews are extremely helpful, but, unfortunately not everyone takes it serious and gives you the feedback that can really help you fix your essay.

I always start my writing process by reading the directions. I read the directions three or four times to fully analyze what is required and what is being asked. For instance, in most assignments are not simply questions. There are usually more than one factor in the question. After understanding the directions, I start following the five steps of the writing process. First, I pre-write/ draft a outline to get my ideas into answering all the parts of the question and to establish. Next, I start writing to establish flow of my paper. Then, I submit it to paperrater.com to check for grammar, punctuation, and spell check. Then, I edit my paper from the suggestions paperrater.com suggested. Lastly, I submit my work for a grade.

One of the tips that has really helped me the when writing and improving my writing is, write your thoughts before organizing them. My mind flows when I am writing a paper or thinking about the topic and I sometimes forget to write everything down, so before I write a paper I sit down and really think about my topic, then I just write words and phrases that come to mind so that when I start my paper I have a general idea about what I want to write.

Before we did the guided essay in class, I would often forget to gather ideas and develop my topic for my written assignment and so my paper would often look unfinished because it did not have a supporting topic. I also would not draft my papers because I thought drafting was a waste of time. Most of the papers that I have written did not get a good grade because I didn’t know how important it was to know all of the rules of writing an assignment. But after doing the guided essay in class, I realized that drafting and gathering ideas for a topic sentence can help you when doing a written assignment

In my writing assignments, I found that I am good at organizing my thoughts and notes in an appropriate way, also going back and revising my mistakes along the way. In my future writing assignments, my goal is to make sure that I know how to start my writing properly and taking extra time to proofread the whole assignment.

My academic writing experiences have consisted mainly of writing various types of papers and assignments for college courses. They included completing literature reviews, writing research papers, writing response papers, and keeping journals. The biggest writing challenges I have faced are both initiating and organizing the writing assignment. Initiating the writing assignment has been a challenge, because I often feel I don't know where or how to begin. I over-analyze the assignment to the point where I often second guess myself on what I want to say in my writing assignment. When it comes to organizing the assignment, I have a hard time deciding what and where to put certain elements of what I need to write. I have worked very hard to overcome these challenges. The best thing I have done with my challenge of initiating the writing assignments is to just start writing even if I don't know what I want to say. I have found that once I commit to writing 'something' my mind begins to clear and focus on the task at hand. I can then start to formulate what I need to write. My other challenge of organization has also been difficult. However, I have found that creating an outline of what I want to say has helped me a great deal. Once I have an outline in place it allows me to keep my writing on track so I don't stray off topic.

I would think about what I wanted to write, but it took a very long time to develop my thoughts and then put those thoughts on paper. In our first week of WRTG 101 we covered this in Section 8.1 of Writing for Success (2013); I found that using experiences and observations or freewriting is a great way for me to begin the writing process (The Saylor Foundation). This allows me to get my ideas on the paper, which is normally one of my greatest issues. Once I have the ideas, I can begin to focus and organize my paper. Section 8.2 of Writing for Success (2013) covers how to construct an outline for a paper (The Saylor Foundation). This was particularly important for me while writing my research paper. Listing my main points in order of importance allowed me to focus on one at a time before proceeding to the next.

I tend to agree with Mrs. Anne Lamott in this article, all my initial drafts are shitty. This is one of my worst subjects of all the subjects that I have taken in college, it is the least enjoyable. I do remember the long hours of summer spent repeating English because I could not get it right the first time, trying to remember the sentence structures the verbs and adjectives to use, turning in mediocre papers and receiving C’s and D’s. I know my writing style isn’t the best I try to keep everything as simple as possible to stay out of trouble; I do not challenge myself with writing because I know that I am not a good writer. Mrs. Lamott article is correct the initial first draft is just getting the ideas on paper and from there they will

Recently in my English course, our professor gave us an assignment in which we had to write an essay as if we were Native Americans meeting the Spaniards for the first time. When we wrote our first draft of our essays, we inter-changed amongst ourselves in order to peer-edit our rough drafts. As I received my essay, in which I thought I had done a great job writing, back I noticed a lot of the errors I had committed. Luckily, my classmates corrected them for me and made various suggestions to improve my essay.

After the preparation process, organization my ideas and connect them with outlines. I fill the enough supports under my outlines at first. And that details must related with the topic directly in the first step, because if I choose wrong supports and subjects of each paragraph, it becomes horrible even I can’t fix it after finishing it. Then I start to make the first draft.

Still being in high school I have little experience in big reading or writing. However, there are some books I have read and writing assignments I have had that influenced my skills and attitudes about Literature. One of those times was when I read the book Swordbird. I know that not everyone may know what that book is, but it did change how I wrote my own stories and how I created my own ideas.