Lessons Learned In My Writing

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.

When I first started this course I didn’t know what to expect. I really enjoyed writing but there was a lot of areas that I needed to work on. When I first started to review the modules I was blown away by all the helpful sites that were at my disposition. The Power points and different sites completely changed my whole perspective of writing to a whole new dimension. Thanks to the modules I am more confident right now before I even begin an essay. I remember in the past how beginning an essay was so difficult for me because I didn’t know how to even start. In this course I have learned how to begin an essay, how to manipulate information, and how to use in-text documentation properly. These are just some of the few things that I will definitely be taking with me in the future for my courses and personal growth.

I have been a student at San Jose States University for second years, English 1A was my first regular English class, and over the course of my stay I have grown and learned a lot. As Hospitality major, I do not know whether need my writing skills for future job, but I know the great experience in English 1A class would help me to improve all my writing weakness.

Over this quarter of English, I have learned many things out of the three to four essays that we have written. I have learned how to write college papers in the appropriate page requirements. Our teacher noticed after the first two essays we wrote that we suffered from sentence fragments, sentence run ons, and comma splices. I have learned how to fix those errors in my papers that I write. A thing I have learned about myself as a writer is that I write very well when a paper is about my personal life because it is easier to write about yourself than about a topic that you are just researching for the first time. If the paper is about my life experiences, I would get a good grade on it.

A semester has passed since I started college and my journey of becoming a better writer. It has been a very important semester for my future college career, and I would not be here without the things I have accomplished. The composition program has really helped me to prepare for what college writing is all about. Now standing here and looking back I could not imagine how it would be without that class. I believe my English, and my writing is better than it has ever been, and all thanks to the composition program.

What has most helped me? Possibly free-writing like now when I chase the stampeded of words that are bulldozing through my brain running form me faster than I can get them down on paper. The writing is apt to come out confused and bewildered, but then I follow Ayn Rand's recommendations I have read many writing manuals and have found hers the most valuable to just shut the brain off and write. Later, I adopt the procedure of three revisions. One is to see whether the prose makes sense to an imaginary reader. The next is to see whether I can prune words as ruthlessly as possible (sometimes, I end up annihilating too many); and thirdly to see whether grammar matches.

Within the past eight weeks, I have realized my strengths and weaknesses within the writing process. I have realized that I do not utilize the first step within the writing process of prewriting. However, for the drafting, revising, and polishing steps of the writing process, I am very familiar and use additional resources to strengthen the writing assignment. I create multiple drafts, which includes revising and polishing in each step. Therefore, I use all three of these steps in multiple drafts as I reach the final product for

Over the course of this semester I learned a lot about myself as a writer. This English 101 class has really allowed me to expand my essay structure and ways of thinking. This was my first college writing course and it has given me much more freedom when writing because in high school I felt limited and like what we were writing was not very important. In high school I would write essays to just to fulfill the required word or page count and to a degree I still feel like this but maybe that is why I am an engineering major but in this course I actually was able to express my ideas and for the first time really test the limits of my writing capabilities. I really enjoyed being able to incorporate my voice more in my essays and I believe

Another thing that I have learned that goes with writing multiple drafts is using the reader’s feedback in order to craft my next draft. I have learned through the semester that the audience plays a huge part in

First of all, this week assignment provided me a chance to reflex on my writing skills and how they have improved throughout my life. Secondly, there is a long road to tow when it comes to becoming a proficient writer. For example, this assignment I look at my work and know it could be better, but I fail to see the proper way to correct my own work. Furthermore, there are times I read my assignment multiple times and miss senseless mistakes. People say that practice makes perfect and while that is true it takes me additional practice that the standard person to get perfect.

As a writer, I feel that my weakness is struggling with time management and trying to get my best draft as my first draft. I have always struggled with trying to put forth the best draft on the first one and just making little adjustments and then turning the paper in. Another weakness I have is to over complicate my writing and over think submitting the final draft. Every single essay that I have had to write throughout this semester I have struggled with these problems. Particularly the research paper, since the paper was worth such a big percentage of the grade in the class. I was extremely self-conscious about submitting and writing the paper. I took a long time just to finish a rough draft. I reviewed the final draft for hours before submitting the paper. I also experienced the problem of being extremely self-conscious after I submitted the paper and question everything I choose to write on.

The two revisions techniques that I found helpful was reading my work aloud and asking a friend to read over my work. Anytime I am doing some form of writing whether it’s for work, school, or for personal use I always go back over work just take make sure there are no spelling or grammar errors. There have been times when I found myself reading over it a second time and found small errors that I missed the first go around. When I do read my work aloud it’s kind of hard reading everything from a computer screen sometimes so I will print the document so that I am able to mark the errors that I have found. Asking someone else to look over your work is always helpful because there may be times when they find a mistake that I wasn’t able to find.

My writing skills which I have worked on over the few months I have been in English 102 have changed quite a bit in my opinion. There are many things which I have improved upon that were amongst my weaker writing skills when the year began. On the opposite side of that point, there are also many things which I still need to improve upon if I want to truly elevate my writing to a level that I will be confident in. Finally, I have gained new skills outside of writing from this class, particularly the activities which we did in class at various points throughout the year. These things all cumulate together to give me an appreciation of English courses which I did not previously have.

Also I have learned that by doing the draft step by step as in introduction, body, and conclusion also helped me get through the process of writing the draft. Not doing all the draft at once really helped because if did not feel the pressure of having to finish it all together. First, I would do the introduction and then maybe thirty or sixty minutes later, I would do the body, then after another short brake, I would do the conclusion. This has helped a lot with my draft because between those breaks I would think of something else to include in the paper. As well as giving my self time to think this way of drafting gave me an opportunity to check me paper more thoroughly because I would check each section individually and that way I found mistakes I would have missed before.

Writing is a skill that takes time to develop. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses is very important. Being aware of your strengths can help you stand out, and your weaknesses show you areas where improvement is needed. Like everybody I have weaknesses as well as strengths, and being conscious of them helped me improve my writing skills.