I Am A Structured Writer

Writing varies from a text message to a novel. Writers often have a difficult task in creating a piece of work that truly identifies the meaning of good writing. Every good writer usually starts with the basics such as genre, audience, rhetorical situation, and reflection of the piece. Throughout this semester, we have gone through all of these key terms in great detail with each new assignment that has come our way. In doing this, not only as students but also as writers, we have come to create our own theory of writing. Every writer has a different theory of writing though most are very similar. Now, at this point in the semester after doing countless journals, in-class exercises, and final assignments, I think I have figured out my own

Writing was never a known weakness of mine. However, I could never confidently call it a strength. Throughout the course of this semester, my writing style has evolved and I have rid my writing of many habitual mistakes. I have learned to appreciate writing much more, and enjoy the moments where my mind meets words on a paper. Creativity has always been one of my strong suits, but through this course I catered my creativity to compose a variety of essays and speeches. Likewise, public speaking is something that I did not struggle with in the past, yet the structure of the class required a video speeches which was fairly new to me. All in all, I have been able to identify and modify gaps in my composition of writing and speech as a result of this course.

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

Whenever I get a writing assignment for class, it seems like a chore. I don’t have a problem with writing, but papers always seem to take more time than they should. Maybe this is due to poor planning on my part, but essays are usually an ordeal, and I dread actually doing the work to finish one. The task is simple enough, but putting it off always seems like a better alternative to writing. I do think about the paper that I have to write, but I do not put thoughts and ideas into a paper or outline until I absolutely need to do so. From the moment I am given an assignment sheet, I begin brainstorming about the paper. I may not use any of these ideas, but I think of them. I also have a tendency to forget good ideas, which leads me to think

Despite my dislike for most academic writing, the importance of how it is structured and presented is not lost on me. Finding a good way to follow the conventions taught while trudging away on a project has helped me in many ways. Making sure that I will follow and grow as well has been a huge help. Growth as a writer as pointed out by Kevin Davis

After writing these few essays, I understand that there are multiple ways I could have improved when in the process of writing. For example, I could have used more quotes to help solidify my writing and support some of my arguments more, I also could have brought in my experiences with history within school and maybe what I was taught about the Cold War, and lastly I think I could explain some of the major leaders better when using for my argument. Having prior knowledge about this topic would probably be the best way to prepare to revise these several essays that I have written.

Finding your own writing process is crucial for a writer in order to write a successful paper. Everyone is unique and everyone’s writing process is going to be unique as well. A writer’s notebook is a perfect way for people to record random thoughts, dialogue you hear, and any other ideas you might hear. Brainstorming is a key technique to get started when composing a paper. Brainstorming allows you to think of different topics that would fulfill the requirements needed on your topic assigned. Freewriting, clustering, listing and outlining, and collaborating are also some other techniques that when practiced could come very useful when writing a paper. Having the ability to use either of these five techniques would help tremendously when composing a paper.

Writing is different for everybody. After reading the first part of On Writing Well by William Zinsser my perspective toward writing changed; starting off by the fact that he admitted that “writing is indeed hard” (12). This author, with humorous stories and anecdotes, explained several principles that help one understand how to write efficiently. First of all, be yourself! Zinsser emphasizes the fact that you should be true to yourself and your writing in order to engage a reader in your piece. Other essential principles are: Be precise and avoid clutter. He claims that “the secret to good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components” (7). As I read, I noticed how important engaging a reader becomes to an author but Zinsser reminded me how my writing was made to “please myself first” and then an audience (25). The last but not least rules to follow are: to “avoid clichés” (Zinsser, 35) and “separate usage from confusing jargon” (Zinsser, 45). It is important to maintain your reader active by expressing clear thoughts and avoiding typical sayings that only make a literary piece

My writing style, much like the rest of my life, is rather unorganized. I tend to write an assignment in its entirety all in one sitting. I am not

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.

When composing an essay, or journal entry, or just plain writing, I struggle as a writer with avoiding awkward or wordy phases in my written work. This struggle is yet again based on last year’s experience and feedback from my English class. Improvement with this struggle can be made by the following strategies: reading over my paper more carefully, avoiding the use of words that sound intelligent but don’t flow with the paper, and editing my paper with peers. Recognizing this struggle and following these strategies would improve my writing.

I do not use slang and abbreviated words.: “I thought this cafe’s food and drink are only good looks, but the taste was also good except chocolate chicken steak.” (Artifact 3) Many people might see my Facebook post and my Facebook friends are variable such as teachers, seniors, and juniors, so I care about the writing style in the public place. Then, the text message is also formal because this message is for the person who is older than me, and his position is higher than me. The message was written in Japanese, and Japanese has respect words, so I use respect words for the writing.: “I am going to go there before 5:30.” (Artifact 2) From three writings, I want to prevent that people think I am not an educated person, and they feel uncomfortable about how I use words when they see my writing. If I use formal writing, that adapts to everyone and every situation. Therefore, I try to use formal writing to be an educated person for my reputation.

Furthermore, it is often difficult to identify the fine line between academic English and casual English, driving beginners like myself to write in excessively convoluted manners in a bid to sound more academic. As a result of our confusion over the appropriateness of different language structures, we end up regarding academic writing as a standalone language distinct from the vernacular and try to write exclusively using sophisticated words and complex

I have been writing since I have been in Middle School. I have realized that by college it was easier for me to write down my thoughts in order for me to remember what I have said or done. Writing out my thoughts gives me a sense of recollection, knowledge, and pacification that gets me through my day. I pictured writing to be as simple as jotting down a few sentences, but as I got farther in school I realized that there is more to it than just writing sentences. English has been my most difficult subject I have ever endured, but I have somehow been managing to make excellent grades and achieving all requirements. First in the essay, I will discuss my experiences in the English life that I’ve taken so far up until college. The second part will list my struggles in creating a thesis, a work cited, and properly citing my sources used in the papers.

I must be an unbendable writing, I am still stuck on the usual middle school “hamburger multiple paragraph” essay structure. After reading three academic writing essays my ideas of academic writing has not changed. Even though all three types of essays were forms of academic writing, I came across my own theory. Everyone has their own unique way of writing that makes their essay standout to be academic writing. What someone else might think is academic writing another person might not think the same. Out of the three different types of essay’s Ariel Levy and Taras Grescoe stood out with tone and structure.