I Can See How College Writing

Throughout the English 101 course, I believe I have thoroughly improved in my writing, peer editing, and analyzing readings, along with annotating my thoughts, misunderstandings, and difficulties. I believe I have especially improved on my thesis statements, providing the basis for my essays. My thesis statements have went from being plain and uninteresting to being more detailed, clear, and concise. This enabled me to produced better written essays that are rich in detail, rhetorical statements, evidence, and experiences. I feel as if I came into this course not exactly sure how to write a college paper. I was always more focused on the length of my essays rather than the structure, vocabulary, and ideas my papers were exhibiting. My writing now flows better and presents my ideas in a clear, organized fashion.

The expectations of writing in college compared to writing in high school greatly differ. In high school our focus was on narrating an essay, but in college you are interpreting the information and sources to then explain your ideas in-depth. Your essay structure also has no boundaries; you’re free to organize the essay however

Thonney states, “a study of scholarly research articles from six disciplines provides insight about academic writing that composition instructors can use to prepare students to write across the curriculum” (2011 pg. ). Moving forward, Joseph Williams and Lawrence McEnerney’s essay, “Writing in College” targets students currently enrolled in college which is clear from the title itself and its first opening sentence at the beginning of the first paragraph. The author states, “Some students make very smooth transitions from writing in high school to writing in college, and we heartily wish all of you an easy passage” (Williams and McEnerney page 1). Throughout the essay, the author provides a set of structure and tips that first year college students should know when writing an academic paper. Among this paper, we are able to see that there are students whose instructors are dissatisfied with their paper because it is “lacking something” ( Williams and McEnenery’s pg1 ), it isn’t “quite there” or “You haven’t change”. Both passages consist of informative research that first year college students can identify themselves.

For the summer of 2015, I enrolled as a student in University of Maryland University College (UMUC) to start the journey of earning a bachelor's degree in Cyber Security. For the starting course requirements, Writing 101s was one of the three classes I had picked to begin with. When I first started off in this course, I considered my writing skills poor, with unorganized paragraphing and horrible grammar skills. Now, I am able to write great with more organized essays, proper sentence structures, and also gained researching skills for future research projects or assignments. This course has dramatically increased my confidence in writing and I feel that I am able to write at college level and not middle or high school.

The importance of college-level writing is a topic that is very much backed up and accompanied by facts and studies. Writing in the college-level is needed in order to master college work in any class. Basically all classes require you to more than likely submit some kind of research paper or essay. Writing for Learning to Improve Students’ Comprehension at the College Level by Fahad Alharbi as well as Luiza Costa Ribeiro, Writing Essays at College: Why it’s Important both go into detail on how important writing at this level is and all the skills learned for during and after college. As well on how you can benefit from them.

As seniors about to embark on a journey into the adult world, it’s important to be prepared for what college professors expect in an essay. The article, What do College Professors Want from Incoming High School Graduates, was very insightful on how different the rules are. It states the different skills and mindsets an incoming freshmen must have to succeed in more advanced writing classes. It explains how high school and college writing differ, also how the two are similar. In order to be successful in school and in life one must become independent and open to change.

When I graduated high school, I already knew that I wanted to attend college other than going to the work force. I heard stories about college being fun and it is one of the greatest accomplishment a person can achieve. So, I began college right after high school. As I entered college, I learned that I will have to focus more on writing papers than having fun. In high school my teachers did not prepare me for college essays. I feel like I learned a lot more failing on my college writing assignment than passing on the essays in high school. Well now I have approached the end of the semester of college, and I am exhausted from the constant writing assignments. Although the assignments were difficult like I said it was also helpful. Each assignment helped me in different ways. The assignments helped me improved with my grammar, time management, and how to process before I begin writing. In English 1010 I had different types of writing assignments. I had to write a literacy narrative paper, analysis paper, research paper, and lastly an autoethnography paper which I am doing now. An autoethnography is when the author uses self reflects to write about their experiences about writing a paper. English is not the only subject that I had writing assignments in. I also had to write assignment in my business class. My English teacher had informed me that I will have to do an autoethnography. So, I used my paper in my business class to reflect on how I write by

In this article, “College Success” written by Bruce Beiderwell, Linda Tse, Thomas J. Lochhaas, and Nicholas B. deKanter, they explain the differences of high school and college writing, expectations of the instructors, and the types of papers that are assigned. Most students who struggle in their writing are usually still going through their transformation into college, without even knowing it. Though, how can you see these symptoms? “Students who struggle with writing in college often conclude that their high school teachers were too easy or that their college instructors are too hard” (Beiderwell, P. 1). When going into college there are all sort of ways of writing an essay, in high school you were taught the five paragraph basic

     As writers, many students write to the expectations of their professors and not to their fullest potential. Throughout English 101 I had been writing only to please my professor or to fill the basic requirement to pass English. I always felt that my writing ability was never enough for my professors throughout the previous years. They always wanted clear and concise essays, which for some reason was unreachable by me. However, starting college and taking English 101 helped me with my weaknesses and changed my technique of writing essays. My experience in English 101 taught me to write to my fullest potential and to write what I felt; rather then writing what was required.

During this semester, the realization of my past was that I have often skimmed through parts of the writing process to get the job done. Not being an avid reader often hindered my writing abilities. This class most definitely made me realize that the entire writing process is important and having peer reviews also helped significantly and certainly made a difference in the result of my work. Taking the time to read, brainstorm my thoughts, write an outline, rough draft after rough draft, reading constructive criticism of others helped in the revisions of my papers’ reaching the best possible outcome. When selecting English 102, I knew I would be challenged, but to what extent I was unsure. If like past English courses that were taken learning to write essays would be the goal. Once realizing that my work would be shared with others, providing informed information

Author and professor of writing, Amy Joy stated “Anyone who says writing is easy isn 't doing it right” Learning what I have about the writing process over this past semester, I can now confidently say that Amy Joy is absolutely correct! Writing has never been my strong point but taking on the challenge to turn that around has been extremely rewarding. My lack of confidence in my writing skills would always come across in my assignments. It was clear that I needed guidance with grammar, sentence structure, and expanding my vocabulary. Fortunately, the coursework in English 101 along with the help and support of my professor, I have gained a much greater confidence in my ability to write quality college level papers. My writing has greatly improved taking the Introduction to College Writing course. I have learned how to integrate the words and ideas of others by quoting and paraphrasing, about expository writing, and most importantly, critical thinking.

I used to consider writing as tumble words from your mind, write, read it through, fix minor mistakes, and done. However, you rarely get successful. The truth is many students, including myself, struggle with starting to write a word, or getting stuck in the middle without knowing the main point of the writing. After completing English 101, I can explain the writing process, evaluate the strengths of my essay, and identify my weaknesses.

Proficient writing is an essential skill in all aspects of academic and professional achievement. English 101, Introduction to Composition and Rhetoric, provided the framework to good writing, teaching me composition and rhetoric fundamentals, polishing up my grammar and style, and expressing a clear message. English 102, Composition, Rhetoric, and Research, continued to build on the skills I learned in English 101, focusing on the subject matter research process and employing various rhetorical and literary devices to better express a clear message to the reader. The course also improved my critical thinking capacity, allowing me to culturally evaluate my target audience, present logically flowing arguments using appropriate language and structure, and critically reviewing my writing projects for content and expression. Every writer inherently knows there’s always room to improve and I hold fast to this mindset in all academic, professional, and personal writing projects. English 102 has both challenged and inspired me to grow into a much better writer than before I began the class, providing the necessary skills to be not just a good writer, but a great writer.

I entered this class with a general idea of what was going to be expected of me and what I was going to have to accomplish in order to be successful, and I credit the extent of my preparation for this course to the extensive instruction and critiques provided for me by my high school teachers. By them I was taught the fundamentals of composition which allowed me the time and energy to more deeply understand the intricacies of good writing which I would be taught in college. Although I learned many new concepts in English 101, I feel as though I had a stable foundation to build on and enhance with more refined skills.

Over the course of this past semester, my ability to write has improved tremendously. Prior to undertaking this course, my expertise in writing was not as fine-tuned as it should have been. I had never previously been enrolled in a class specifically tailored to writing-- which was quite clear. Upon reading my past works, it becomes apparent that my writing style consisted of fluff, small words, and inconsistently structured sentences. These problems have, for the most part, been remedied with the coursework I have tackled in College Writing. Rather than long, drawn out papers that take an eternity to reach the primary point, my recent work is much nicer in terms of composition and grammar. I credit these improvements to the three primary