Lessons about Writing in the Works of Various Artists

In my opinion, Arnold and Charlene Tibbetts’ writing had the most impact on writers reading their work. They wrote about the value of making a promise to the reader at the beginning of the paragraph and staying on track with that promise. It means nothing to make a promise without fulfilling it, which is exactly what they did. Then, they gave four simple, but effective, steps on writing a successful paragraph that will appeal to the reader. They gave the readers examples throughout their work, which made their topic easier to understand. I understood more in their writing than I did in other essays. In addition, the Tibbetts used other writers’ paragraphs as examples to demonstrate how writers validate their advice. After finishing the reading,

Like transforming from a caterpillar to a butterfly, my writing style transformed from something mediocre to something quite exceptional. In high school, even when I took advanced placement English and Literature courses, I was never good at writing. My writing would lack structure, reasoning, syntax, and a well-defined thesis statement. My inadequate grades on writing assignments lowered my self-esteem, so I assumed I would never enjoy writing papers because I believed I could never improve. However, since attending a university my writing style has improved far beyond my expectation. My EN 101 course enhanced my understanding of the different ways I could approach my writing. Also, it enhanced my comprehension of outlines to complete assignments. Investing quality time into my writing made a substantial difference because I became a stronger writer. Through the late nights, constant revisions, and agonizing head traumas, I learned that my writing is truly spectacular whenever I incorporate well-defined thesis statements, provide sufficient supporting evidence, and maintain a clear focus in my assignments.

It is essential to understand that classes taken in grade school do not give students a full understanding of each subject. With the topic of writing, there will always be a new lesson to learn, an aspect to improve, or a differing way to explain. Author Craig Vetter states in Bonehead Writing, “This is your enemy: a perfectly empty sheet of paper. Nothing will ever happen here except what you make happen.” Each story, essay, or response comes from a writer’s experiences. With each attempt at a new piece comes an underlying story of emotions the writer is facing. Each person’s writing is unique and the ideas people have are related to their past experiences and what they believe to be familiar with when deciding which writing style to use. As a high school student, I have learned many things about writing that helped me become the improved writer I am today, but the most essential advice I have received is practice makes perfect. Although there is no actual perfect way of writing, I have discovered that each essay I write, my writing improves. It is easier to spot mistakes, find areas to improve, and ponder elevated word choice to use.

The essay I was assigned is “How To Write With Style” by Kurt Vonnegut. After reading the essay, I found that a theme that would best summarize it is “effective communication. Kurt Vonnegut writes in his essay about how one should write in order to attract the reader and effectively communicate your thoughts. His advice to writing as he calls it “How To Write With Style” provides an insight to some elements that allows the writer to effectively communicate his thoughts and be true to him or herself. Keeping it simple, Have the guts to cut, Sound like yourself, Say what you mean to say, Pity the readers are his advice to writers to become effective writers. After reading the essay, I looked at several stories and poems that shared a similar

In order to learn effective writing skills, you must not try to overcomplicate what it is that you do. In other words, your writing should be nothing more than a mere conversation you are having with your audience. You want to get to the point where you are allowing your thoughts to flow freely without interruption. That is where true writing greatness can be achieved. In the end, mean what you write and write what you

Research types of writings at college helped me strengthen my writing skills because as I started to research on a topic, not only I learned more in depth, but also learned how to draw further connections outside of the course(class). I want to improve my writings in making correct connections and organizing ideas. Sometimes, I misunderstand the readings and end up making the wrong connections. In fact, my ideas are all over the place whenever I try to make connections, which does not clearly show that I have understood the assignment. These mistakes often led to downside of my grades. The most useful advice I received that helped me improve my writing is that “the word ‘writing’ actually means to put things together, so don’t be afraid of express your opinions in your writing your opinion.” This encourage me not to be afraid of writing and expressing my opinions.

Dan Melzer, a former student at Florida State University, discusses a few approaches to succeeding as a writer in “Understanding Writing Assignments: Tips and Techniques.” Melzer addresses seven methods to do well as a writer; whether that be in school or the workplace. To shortly summarize the tips, Melzer explores ways that students can help themselves by using their resources. Also, by analyzing the questions and instructions that a teacher asks of the class. He goes on to say that it is also important for the writer to figure out who the audience is. This will ultimately determine the writing style. Basically, if the writer is aware of the audience then he/she will execute the writing assignment differently than if he/she were to just make assumptions of who

In the article “Best Practices in Teaching Writing”, Charles Whitaker outlines eight points on helping students succeed as writers. The first

First, to start out talking about some of the styles and types of writing I have learned about, many of these things may be very common to some but, were new to me. The things we have gone over, to name a few are types and subtypes of arguments and how to present and argument. In these sections I have learned that there are different claim types of the arguments and that the need to understand who is addressing who in these arguments, in any given paper, is crucial if we are going to learn from the discussion. It is important to be able to use quotations and be able to paraphrase things that are being said in papers that are being researched to accurately understand the arguments and form an opinion of our own, as well as be able to construct

In my English 1010 class, I have learned to do a number of things through writing essays. I have written a Literacy Narrative, a Discourse Community Analysis, and a Writing Research essay. Firstly, I have learned to identify how an author’s purpose, audience, genre, and context determine effective writing. The purpose of the literacy narrative was to help me understand myself better as a writer (Jones 1). My teacher was the intended audience of the narrative. The genre of the narrative was non-fiction by cause of it being about my experience as a writer. The context of writing made my writing more interesting and more effective. Knowing those elements helps you to compose writing that is more effective due to you needing to know what you need to write about and who is receiving your writing. I displayed these skills by going into detail about my experiences with reading and writing through my life. As shown in the following sentence from my literacy narrative I shared how fun and exciting it was when my second-grade class received the opportunity to write a book, A Book of Future Astronauts, “Everyone in the class was truly excited to be writing our own book,” (Writing is Good).

As Goshgarian states in Exploring Language, “Most college writing is an exercise in persuasion – an attempt to influence reader’s attitudes about the subject matter” (90). In order to effectively persuade our audience, we must not only write skillfully, but also be able to send a clear, interesting, and concise message. In chapter two of the above mentioned book, Goshgarian provides various articles with insights on how to improve our writing. I found “Beware the Trap of Bore-geous Writing”, by Ayelet Waldman; “The Case for Short Words”, by Richard Lederer; and “Saying is Believing”, by Patricia O’ Conner very interesting as they all highlight the importance of writing clearly and provide valuable advice on how to do it better. However, I personally found “Saying is Believing”, by Patricia O’Conner, to be the most helpful resource due to the reasons I intend to explain in this essay.

In my English 1010 class, I have learned to do a number of things through writing essays. I have written a Literacy Narrative, a Discourse Community Analysis, and a Writing Research essay. Firstly, I have learned to identify how an author’s purpose, audience, genre, and context determine effective writing. The purpose of the literacy narrative was to help me understand myself better as a writer (Jones 1). My teacher was the intended audience of the narrative. The genre of the narrative was non-fiction because it was about my experience as a writer. The context of writing made my writing more interesting and more effective. All those things make effective writing because you have to know what you need to write about and who is receiving your writing. I displayed these skills by going into detail of my experiences with reading and writing through my life. In the narrative I shared how fun and exciting it was when my second grade class got the opportunity to write a book, A Book of Future Astronauts (Writing is Good).

Every writer and reader has their own opinion and perspective on things. In “Exploring Language” chapter 2, all the authors had a great point and advice about how to be a successful writer. The one with the most useful information for improving my own writing was a professor at the University of California-Davis, Anne Lamott’s essay because I can totally relate to the subject. It has been always a struggle for me to write any of my college paper, but Lamott eased my fear of writing. She states “It is a matter of persistence and faith and hard work.

In the 1980's , Kurt Vonnegut had published an "advertorial" by the name of, "How to Write With Style". This publication was an attempt to encourage and help writers in sharing their personalities in their writings. In his excerpt he gave eight tips which he felt would be helpful in a new writers endeavors. 1, " Find a subject you care about". Vonnegut says the writer should find some connection to the topic they are writing about. 2, "Do not ramble though"; get your point across strongly but do not reiterate things. "Keep it Simple", was an example that even the most famous quotes of our times were short sentences. "Have the guts to cut", Sound like yourself, Say what you mean to say, pity the readers. Finally he recommended that if one was

I used some practices of good writers to improve my writing, such as revising the first draft, trying to write regularly, and break big jobs into small chunks. Moreover, I read daily, try to have a large vocabulary, choose and use several different strategies, focus on purpose, audience, use rules flexibly, and finish a draft before editing text.