Patterned Writing Analysis

English Composition I has developed my style of writing and my skills analyzing and researching topics to write a piece about a topic. Throughout the course, I got better at analyzing articles and pieces to get the meaning of the topic. With that improved skill I was more able to use the information given from the text and install it into my essays, with proper citation if needed. Before taking the English Composition course, I was not one to organize my essays in an ordeal order to clearly state the point of the work. Now with taking the course, I have learned to organize my essays, examine research for a topic, and develop an essay with proper mechanics, and revising skills. In writing my personal, review, analytical, and cultural

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

I did not have a firm writing philosophy before this semester, but I to some degree I understood the importance writing can have on a situation. Now I understand that writing has two outcomes: gaining support or losing support. When writing an essay it is best if the writing is as specific as possible. This way the audience is hopefully not left with a confused opinion about the topic. Since the beginning of the semester I have put a conscious effort to change my writing style. Instead of the box format that is learned in high school I try to use a more graceful approach while still being organized. Also, I evaluate the credibility of a source before I use the information to support my thesis and understand the roles of using ethos,

There are many components involved in the writing process that are important to incorporate in your essay to make it a strong well constructed piece. Knowledge about the writing process is needed in order to succeed. Without the proper the knowledge there will be no direction throughout the paper. There are many different ways to write, but it is necessary to include in depth research, a strong thesis that pulls your audience into the paper, and organizational skills to create a backbone for a strong complete essay.

Initially my writing lacked structure and a controlling purpose which caused my ideas to be incoherent and hard for the reader to understand. These difficulties could be attributed to the fact that I am an art student plagued with the disorganization and non-verbal method of an artist’s brain. Being this way, interpreting and conveying my thoughts accurately and eloquently into the assigned writings was fairly tough. However, during the course of English 101 I was able to identify my weaknesses through the aid of writing communities such as peer review sessions and conferences with my professor. With the help from these resources and the writing process I learned to better organize my essays and maintain a controlling purpose in order to help my audience

Another error of my writing process was not having a clear and specific thesis statement. I would often combined to many thoughts and ideas all in one sentence, which made it very difficult for readers to understand my main argument. For example, in my fourth essay about performance-enhancing drugs, my thesis “Athletes are constantly recognizable to the public eye; their actions can affect the children and adults for whom they serve as role models, which is why many athletes depend on the use of performance-enhancing drugs to better their performance,” was very vague and was not the main focal point of the essay which it should have been. In recent years prior, I never had any problems trying to convey my message or point. College was entirely a different league. My professor suggested that I read other research papers to better understand how my thesis should sound and be constructed. My professor then told me that I needed to add that explanation into the paragraph so the reader can understand exactly what I am trying to get across with

An aspect that I often struggle with is proper punctuation. Truthfully, I do not know how to correctly use punctuation. When writing, I place punctuation by mimicking authors’ formats or by placing them where it feels right. This is present in all of my writing, but I am attempting to improve. Punctuation also plays a part in another weakness of mine, one that is most likely present within this essay. Since middle school, it was engrained in my mind that a good essay is a long essay, so I have a tendency for wordiness. To elongate an essay, I tend to add needless words and sentences. For example, in the rough draft of the Whole Process Essay, I added several unrelated occurrences to elongate the paragraphs. Although my essays were long and wordy, the professor commented on vagueness and unclearness within the whole process and practice essay. Sometimes, I disregard the fact that the reader might not know what it is I am writing about or the sentence makes perfect sense to me. The latter is the most common, I quickly read the sentence and it appears fine to me. Within the Whole Process Essay, another weakness was brought to my attention. I lack structure, a key element in effective writing. Within the same essay and a few others, I simply added what felt right, sometimes the result would be acceptable but in other instances, it was a long, jumbled mess.

As a writer there are many elements of writing that I struggle with, especially when composing an essay. When writing an essay, there are usually many skills that need to be used in order to be successful with the writing assignment. Many times in writing I struggle with explaining and fully developing the supporting details and ideas in my essay. I would also like to improve on incorporating clear topic sentences and concluding sentences, connecting my paragraphs ideas back to my thesis. Lastly, improvement can be made in my writing by avoiding awkward or wordy sentences. Writers face numerous challenges in their writing but strive to overcome or improve these challenges with each piece they write.

Let me start by saying that I liked that we got to read a few written WPA examples, it gave me such a better understanding what was expected from my writing. My timed composition was a disaster. I got lost in trying to summarize, but only limit it to one small paragraph. I am still really working at not summarizing the whole essay, but trying to really understand "what the author is trying to say" and coming up with persuasive strategies was a little bit of a challenge. I understood what the author was saying, it was a nightmare trying to get my thoughts out. Having it be timed made it seem worse than what it was, I like to start my essay, take breaks and come back with a clear head. With it being timed, there was no time for that. I did make

That is where most of my mistakes are is in the body paragraphs. That is usual where I get off topic or start to ramble on about one thing which leads to one paragraph is longer than the others. My conclusions never connect the entire essay together which I also say needs improvement.

i In seventh grade, I mini project about haikus, but that’s about it. Usually my essays would have to be about 3-5 pages because they were doubled space most of the time. On the first couple of essays, my teachers gave a planning sheet for the entire essay and that planning sheet was like a rough draft. Then you would copy and paste your planning sheet into a final draft. In my classes and did a lot peer editing in my language arts class. My strengths for writing is the planning out my essay before writing it and having all the research if needed for the writing assignment. My weakness in writing is to be clear and straight to the point and writing subtopics can be difficult. This year I would like to improve the ability to be clear in my writing because that is the foundation for

I decided to pick the first paper of the semester which was the Literacy Narrative. In this paper I learned how develop my thesis. I used the xyz form that I was taught this year to make my thesis more clear and able to understand. This was a major problem I faced coming into this year. I’ve gradually become better in this area taking

The thing about these essays is that the problems I encounter with them are twofold. It’s like that scene in Jurassic Park where they realize that they have all the problems of a major zoo and a major amusement park. First, I have to worry about the time managment piece. When students wait until the last minute to do the work it’s generally not very good or it’s incomplete or both...probably both. That is a self-discipline issue that is completely removed from what I’m actually trained to teach my students. My hands are tied when I’m confronted with this.

In this generation, the writing chances are decreasing. Everyone uses mails and texts. For these reasons, the skill of beautiful writing is getting worse. In most linguistic course which I took before, were required writing skill, such as English and Mandarin. And people say that a good writer has the ability to write something that can be interested in. I know that the skill relies on daily practice, but nowadays the daily practice is getting less. So students should be mandatory take timed essay test. Although some would like to say that it is too much pressure from the timed limitation, but the timed essays actually create effective writing for most student and help students to realize the fact of their own writing ability.

The purpose of me writing this portfolio is so my reviewers can understand the struggle that i have went through but also the improvement that I have went through this far in the semester. In my final portfolio I am going to put three types of essays the first one is going to be a timed essay the one I am going to put in of the timed essay is going to be my classification timed essay I did this semester. So you can see the growth I made this semester and the difference in my writing when it comes to a timed essay and a regular essay. The second essay I am going to put it in is a teacher edited essay and the name of that essay is called “ What A True Friend Means To Me.” The last essay I am going to put in my essay is a student edit essay and the name of that one is called “ Medication Should be Your choice.” I had a lot of struggle when it came to the timed essay because I felt like I didn 't have enough time and I wasn 't organized so it took me longer than others. But I know for next time I have a timed essay to free write first and to make better use of my time so I can get better into detail. Also I feel as though I could’ve gotten a 4/4 in my last timed essay because I understood more but I had trouble with how should I start off but once I started writing it came to me I just wish we had time to write out ideas and then another time to actually start the essay. Going to writing Skills III was worth it because I use to think how I was writing my essay in high school was