Josh Keller's 'Studies Explore Wether The Internet Makes Students Better Writer'

Writing is a powerful tool for communication and connection. As an extension and expression of the mind, writing is as much about the mental processes of the author as it is about the final marks laid to paper. As we write, we hold in mind our own thoughts on the work, anticipate the reader’s thoughts, and think both in concrete and abstract ways in order to accomplish the task at hand. Whether an academic research paper, a novel, or text message to friends, writing seeks to engage, persuade, or impress concepts upon an audience. Like language and other art forms in general, the practice of writing is ever-evolving and is subject to cultural and contextual influence, expectations, and conventions. Each writer holds a theory

Everyone on the planet has a goal set in life, but only a handful attempt to improve to obtain their goal by studying the subject their goal is in. In my English class, English 101 this quarter I was astonished by how much I had progressed as a writer sharpening my writing skills and also learned a lot about writing that I hadn’t learned before. In my writing portfolio for this quarter I had to write an autobiography essay, a research essay, and this reflection essay to develop my writing skills better. The writing assignments were fun to do because it challenged me to work on essays of different styles that were new to me. The essay assignments helped me grow as a better writer that gave me the self-confidence and skills to take on the world on my own.

In Dan Berrett’s article, “Students Come to College Thinking They’ve Mastered Writing,” the idea of freshman thinking they are or must be a refined writer is discussed. Students may think this way coming into college, but their teachers do not. While students might feel satisfied and think that they are prepared with their writing skills, professors found that these students did not necessarily meet the expected level (Berrett 1). Many students reported that they would normally write around 25 hours every week. They said that most of those hours of writing was for more formal purposes like passages to make changes in society (Berrett 1). It was found that one reason the new students might feel this way is that their assumptions about writing differed greatly from those of faculty members and their expectations. One big thing that students will not get for a while, is that good writing is not just listed as a bunch of steps one is to follow that automatically make one’s writing good. Good writing requires one to be in different mental states; it requires the understanding of how to write for different audiences and different reasons (Berrett 2). Berrett includes in the article that writing is not just universal and that in order to do very well, writers must use different forms of writing specifically for their purpose (2). It seems as though students think that, before they even take a class, they are supposed to know everything about writing; in reality, they are supposed to learn new skills and enhance others (Berrett 2). Berrett says that many believe the schools these students previously attended with their test focus might cause these feelings about writing (2). Berrett ends his article by saying that students these days do not think that informal writing actually counts as writing, and that students should practice writing for informal purposes because it can help them (2). Even if they feel like it, students are not fully prepared to write in all contexts when they arrive at college.

While attending writing class, I learned about the 4 steps in writing, bases for revising, organizing, and connecting specific information, and I also learned about the different types of essays such as descriptive, narrative, process, cause and effect and argumentative essay. I have been a student at Milwaukee Area Technical College for 1 semester, and over the course of my enrollment I have grown and learned more that I knew prior to attending this writing course. Participating in this writing class has taught me so much more than stuff about literature and language, it has taught me another way of expressing myself. I have learned here how to write and express myself, how to think for myself, and how to find the answers to the things that I don 't know. Most importantly I have learned how important technique, outlines and organization are. My goal in this paper is to inform writers about how my writing skills have improved.

In the 2011 article “Helping Students Meet the Challenges of Academic Writing”, educators Linda Fernsten and Mary Reda offer innovative self-reflective writing exercises that post-secondary instructors can employ to help students improve writer self-image and academic writing. The authors’ rationale for reflective and practical writing strategies were developed from direct classroom experience, and are based on four (4) assumptions. Their claim that self-reflective writing can aid student writers in overcoming conflict (due to dominant culture, upbringing, former writing experiences, gender, and other marginalizing factors) to improve writer self-identity is plausible. However, their argument that cross-curriculum academic writing can be improved through self-directed, self-reflective writing requires further investigation.

Teachers, parents, and friends often tell students exactly what the writing process should entail and how long it should take. However, the older I get, the more I realize that the writing process varies not only from person to person, but also from one writing project to the next. Throughout my years of life, I have written countless papers, ranging from a persuasive speech to an extensive research paper, and each project requires an altered version of my personal writing process. While each individual has his own writing process, there can be many similarities between different writing processes. Finding one’s individual writing process takes trial, error, and repetition. When an individual finally uncovers his unique writing process, better thought, work, and writing is produced.

Cynthia Haven is the writer of an article called “The New Literacy: Stanford study finds richness and complexity in students' writing” that is a study based on the amount of writing college students do. She followed students at Stanford during their undergraduate years and the first year after that. She discovered that today’s students are writing more than any generation before it. Cynthia had the students she was studying submit all of the writing they did, academic or personal. She found that only 62 percent of the work submitted to her was for classes; the rest of the material was “Life writing”.

In today’s society one would not be able to communicate effectively with the world if writing was not involved. People all around the world send emails, texts, and letter to numerous amounts of individuals each second. Talking on the phone is slowly becoming a thing of the past while the writing side of technology is taking over. The meaning of writing is changing in society. Writing used to be specifically for academics or the occasional letter to a loved one. As time has passed writing has taken more forms and more meanings. In the world we live in now writing is classified as texting, emailing, instant messaging, and even comments or tweets on social media. Although writing has these multiple new forms, it still holds its academic side strongly. Everything with meaning in turn affects a person’s day to day life. Writing has the effect of making one more intellectual. Writing has become a bridge between communication and the cultures and people of today’s society. It gives way for different options in stating sentences or phrases. (Olson). Each affect should change with age. As a person grows older, their writing styles should mature and take on a more professional aspect.

In the article “Studies Explore Whether the Internet Makes Students Better Writers” (From Inquiry to Academic Writing 2015) by Josh Keller, the writing techniques of college students at Stanford University is examine and debated if the nontraditional writing assignments helped the writing skills of students. The article is a debate of whether the new generations of students who love to blog, send messages on Facebook, or even on twitter have the necessary skills to become skilled writers. In 2006 a Stanford University student actually graduated with writing the nontraditional paper assignments. There were still educators who were in disbelief that students could write in the nontraditional styles and become effective writers in society, that

The way we express ourselves by writing indirectly affects our life. In fact, the method I used to answer the exams was missing some essential points. Therefore, I decided to overcome this problem and begin an online writing course. I am learning some valuable strategies to improve my writing Including how I collect my ideas, and I punctuate sentences. Realizing that writing has many vital aspects that writers should consider when they decide to write, not only grammar is important, but also the way in which our thought are conveyed and organized. Thus, after finishing the paragraph we should check our writing. For example, founding some common mistakes we used to do, such as run-on sentences and sentence fragments. Finding our weakness is

Students are not given the chance to write about a topic that they enjoy. For example, I like to write research paper so if am not given the chance to chose, then l do not enjoy writing what am told to write. Researchers have found that teens get greater enjoyment from the writing they do outside of school than the writing they do in school. Half (49%) of teens enjoy the writing they do for themselves compared with just 17% who enjoy the writing they do for school. In total, nearly one third of teens say they enjoy their school writing “not much” (22%) or “not at all” (10%). Teens enjoy personal writing because there is more time to practice and a lot of opportunities. Writing personal or choosing your own topic helps teens to do a wide range of writing activities. Teens who write most often outside of school are happy about it because you get the topic of your choice. In the future, teachers should give students the chance to pick their own topic and that will help increase the enjoyment of

Writing is a very necessary skill. A skill not only to succeed in college, but to advance in your personal and professional life. Writing well will allow you to share your ideas in many ways. Therefore, in this exposition it will help you better understand the fundamentals of writing and make you a better writer for your academic, personal, and professional life. Writing can become easier to you when you understand the techniques of writing a well written essay or even a standalone paragraph.

In the 2011 article “Helping Students Meet the Challenges of Academic Writing”, educators Linda Fernsten and Mary Reda offer innovative self-reflective writing exercises for post-secondary instructors to employ to help students improve writer self-image and academic writing. The authors’ developed their rationale for reflective and practical writing strategies from direct classroom experience and based it on four (4) assumptions. Their claim that self-reflective writing aids student writers in overcoming conflict (due to dominant culture, upbringing, former writing experiences, gender, and other marginalizing factors) to improve writer self-identity is plausible. However, their argument that improvement in academic writing across the curriculum occurs through self-directed, self-reflective writing requires further investigation.

Reading Kiefer essay she described drawing a comparison to traditional classroom and the online environment. She describes some of the deficits of writing

Writing can be incredibly intimidating for anyone, and students often feel inadequate or incapable. Using the meaningful literature we read as mentor texts, I aim to make students aware of strategies and tools that authors use well with intentions that they can implement similar