Personal Narrative: Improving My Writing

I have a love-hate relationship with writing. I can write well according to some of my peers; though this could just be from the fact that I seem like the quiet, studious, type who has spent most of her time with the straight "A" nerds who went on to top tier schools such as Stanford. Sometimes I am not too sure of my own writing abilities. On most essays, I get a little bit above average grades and every once in a while I get a few more points than usual. I have noticed that my writing is better when I have to write about a topic I am passionate or know a lot about. The more I have to work with the better. Otherwise, my writing seems poor, forced, and somewhat bland. It usually follows a poor or basic thesis statement and lazy paragraphs. I believe motivation helps me to write better,

During this spring semester, I have grown in many ways as a writer, and a student. I have started to realize, and accept the flaws that I have created in my writing. In the past, I never looked into my writings and saw my problems, and if I did, I did not accept that they were problems. In my writing pieces in the past, I was very hard-headed about what I thought was correct versus what was actually correct. I have also become More familiar with different formatting options on Microsoft Word to create a more professional piece or writing. However, figuring out all the parts of writing and making them work together is the most difficult part of writing.

How can I become a better writer? Throughout my writing experiences, I have learned I have many weaknesses along with strengths. My experiences with writing has not always been the best, but over time, with lots of practice and instructions from my instructors, I can proudly say that I have gained a better understanding on the layout of essays and papers. As well as understanding how to write correctly my goal as a writer is to learn how to overcome my weaknesses and use my strengths to my highest ability. I have many strengths, weaknesses and goals that I plan to achieve and overcome in my college career.

My writing has changed a lot throughout the year. Some of my first pieces included lots of redundancies, “th” words, and things that could be changed. In addition, the sentences were not as long as they could have been. These things were brought to my attention by reviewing my writing and using the writing goal sheet. Over the semester, I have learned these little mistakes separate lower level writing from higher level writing. Reviewing my old writing and writing instruction has recently been on my mind while I write essays. They help me to write to the best of my ability. The first sentence of my essay at the beginning of the year is, “I am thirteen years old and I am interested in building and designing things.” This sentence has redundancy

Over the course of this semester, I have learned many things to improve my writing. Having taken the course before, this semester has been an excellent opportunity to expand on my existing knowledge. Although I had written many essays before, there is still much to be learned and improved. Two factors of writing that I had learned or improved on this semester were transitions/topic sentences and how to properly structure a conclusion paragraph.

How long was I going to continue to ignore the fact that I desperately needed help with my writing? Reflecting back even in high school it seems I’ve always had the same problems when it came to my writing. Maybe it was the fact that I was too lazy to take the extra time out to write out a rough draft, unless of course it counted towards my grade, or maybe it was the fact that I never paid attention to my grammar because I was always rushing. Either way it goes once I got to college I realized I wasn’t going to be able to skate by with just putting my initial ideas on paper and turning them in, if I really wanted to get a good grade I would have to work for it.

I'm not the best when it comes do to writing well. I guess i feel like my writing doesn't sound “smart” it's not full of big words that the reader has to look up and learn more about.

Would you believe me if I told you that masters of any art still practice the skills that got them to where they are now? This might not come as a surprise to most, but success and perfection is measured in time. Repetition is key when talking about mastering skills. There are many steps that have helped me through my writing process. Thinking planning, and revision are skills that have made me a better writer. These skills are crucial for becoming a better writer because it decides the volume of my work and makes sure the reader understands my intent.

My earliest memories of reading was when my mom sent me to bible school and the teacher would read out a hand book

My writing process in the past has never been concrete. It was even very rare that I had a process or even realized that I had a process going on. All I did was write without revision. For example, one time I had a research paper due the next day. I made the decision to take all of the examples I had, write it out, explain it, then give my take on the example, 30 minutes before it was due. Although it was littered with grammar mistakes, I got a passing grade. However, this anxious direction of writing held me back from creating great writing assignments and projects.Because I was being told constantly that I had "great ideas but terrible form" made writing extremely hard and close to depressing.

The first step of my writing process when I write a traditional essay consists of brainstorming. If a certain format is provided, I have to brainstorm the order of my key points. On the other hand, for some assignments I am given the specifics of what I need to talk about (like these Log Its) and even given subheadings which I must include to offer a professor better access and recognition of key parts. Once I begin to write, I never have in mind that what I write is a draft of any sort. Personally, I like to keep up with my grammar, spelling and punctuation as I go, so once I finish, the paper is pretty close to being finished with very few mistakes. Sometimes, I type a word that I doesn’t fit into the context but at that time, I have a couple of sentences in my had that I know will disappear if I don’t type them out, so I type (?) after the word to remember to find a synonym or change the word.

Although my writing process is not where I want it to be yet, I have made significant improvement. This class has been instrument in providing me the necessary guidance to improve my skills and grow in many areas. I feel more confident and will continue to work tirelessly to continue to grow. In regards to the final draft of this week critical essay and my writing process in general focuses on several key techniques. I have found my brainstorm technique to be an effective way to embrace any subject I have to write about. My weakness lies probably in organizing my writing. I’m working on following Dr. Idowu’s guidelines and recommendations to strengthen my abilities to deliver better results. Our professor’s guidance has help me tremendously,

What I’ve experienced with writing so far is that I have limited skills. But the funny thing is that I am constantly writing something just about every day whether it be an email, or summarizing meeting minutes at work, or proposing an idea for a church program.

In this semester my achievement of improving my writing skills has increased significantly. My sentence lengths vary in a positive manner along with my word choice improving, becoming more complex and of writing expectation. My main struggle this semester would be the peer editing. Although I have improved significantly I still find it difficult to edit others papers. Further more than the common spelling and grammatical errors. I believe my essays have improved drastically from the beginning of the semester towards the end.

My journey of becoming a good writer, I have faced many challenges. English being a second language, sacrificing time needed for a good essay paper, and being consistent in writing, has been many of my challenges of becoming a good writer. Repeatedly, I have come to understand that writing is a process, and I can become a better writer by writing more often, and reading novels and magazines.