Personal Note On Being A Good Writer

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.

A good writer is someone who knows how to write well, have ideas to put on paper and write a well-organized essay that answers the question that a professor gives to you. I identify my own writing by not being good because I have issues sometimes getting words on paper, organizing the essay and my grammar is not very well. The methods that are effective for improving my own writing is practice writing and have someone proof read my work. I am in COM100L because my grammar is not good and my writing on paper is all over the place. My expectation for this course is to improve my grammar when I write essays and fix my mistakes when I write.

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.

As a writer, I find myself getting lost. Typically, when I go to start writing I hit a brick wall. It’s as if all my thoughts suddenly escape my mind and I draw a blank. It takes me forever to conjure up some form of a thesis and then takes even longer to figure out what I should write to support it in a way that makes sense. Then, attempting to find a way to organize my ideas and put them together in cohesive paragraphs seems like an impossible task in the moment. It is not uncommon for me to get flustered and just throw something down on the paper because I get anxious seeing how much work is left to do. If I end up going back to read it over prior to submission,

As the Fall 2017 term comes to end, I look back on what I have accomplished in this class. English 102 – Composition II was one of the most challenging and toughest class I have taken at UW-Stout, but feel as though it has helped me to improve my writing skills. Even before the semester started the feeling of anxiety had taken over, as writing has never been my strongest skill, but stayed positive and confident I would be successful. Much to my surprise, my instructor, Michael Critchfield quickly addressed that this class would not be easy and amazingly changed my views of writing throughout the entire semester.

The only way you can become better at doing something is simply by continuing to work on your craft. Whether it is a hobby, an interest, or a profession, if you don't keep working, then you will remain complacent. A year ago, I thought writing was one of those things where I would just be complacent in. Not because I didn’t wanted to work harder at it, but because I thought of writing as one of those skills that came natural to you, or you did not have it at all. I always wanted my writing to improve but never knew how.

In my opinion my writing ability before I arrived in this course at the University of Dubuque was fair, it wasn’t outstanding, but it wasn’t horrible. My biggest obstacles I faced in this course was coming up with a good topic to write about. Coming up with a topic you care about and can expand on your ideas can be a challenge. When learning to write in a more cohesive manner, I think the chapters we took notes on were very beneficial to improving my writing. It showed me the proper way to write a thesis and how to compose my papers. I also believe practicing our writing by journaling helped me learn to write what is going through my mind and it helped me to just learn to get my thoughts and ideas down on paper.

Being an effective writer requires being able to identify your strengths and weaknesses and what is effective versus what is ineffective with your writing. The first principle to be improved is being more specific. Sometimes as a writer responding to an email or assignment by writing too fast can cause the person to miss your initial point in the response and then there will be another email asking for clarity. This will allow them to comprehend the initial response and take action if needed or send a thank you in return (Cardon, P., 2013).

In front of me, my laptop screen cast a pallid, taunting glow over my face. On the table, caffeinated-chocolate wrappers and hastily drawn flowcharts lay nestled among a jungle of power cords. Even my loose ‘E’ key was prompting me to give up for the night, jiggling weakly as I typed. I turned to the three other members of my team. “It would be a miracle if we successfully finish this in time.” The words echoed amidst muffled snoring coming from another team nearby.

I don’t consider myself a very good writer. I write when I am made to or when I have something that I need to say that I can’t just tell someone. I keep a diary. Usually my diary is just a record of what I have done that day. It’s not so much about my feelings. I don’t really like talking about my feelings, usually because most of the time I am confused about what exactly I am feeling. I tend to keep the feelings that I do have to myself, to protect myself from getting hurt.

Click-cli-cli- click, the rapid sounds coming from Mark’s keyboard were frantic at best. He was inside his small cubicle, stacked by all of the others in the office building. His hand shakingly reach for his cup of coffee, and brought it to his mouth, cold. He didn’t care, he didn’t have time to get a new one.

All throughout my years of schooling, I’ve had just about, one paper that was about one page long, due every year. My papers never had to be more than one page in length. Therefore, I did not have to do much writing or do many essays. Surely not enough to remember any of the assignments. Writing has never been something I enjoyed doing, so I never bothered to many any memories of my writing experiences. I did not think it was necessary to remember any of them since I only had to do them to get a grade. The only writing experience I remember was the first assignment I had in this English 100 class about a writing experience. All week long, I sat there thinking about what to write about, but nothing came to mind as a topic. Then, one thing came to mind, but it was so very vague, I could not write the length that was needed for the assignment. I could only think of a few sentences to write for it. After sitting for a few moments longer, I thought, how about I write about how difficult it was for me to write this essay before it was due.

I want to start by saying thank you for making the time to talk with me about writing # 5 in-person on Monday. As you mentioned, that was a kind of discussion you do not desire to have. I have never imagined myself to be in this type of position either. I truly regret to put us both in such circumstance.

The most important thing that a piece “good” writing does is make people question where they stand on certain topics. This is the most important thing because when you question things you learn more, and when learn more you will be able to teach more. When you read something you do not want to just read it and not learn anything from it, then there would have been no purpose in reading it. Writers do not just write papers so they can tell the reader what is right or wrong. They write to explain their theory, to make others understand where they are coming from and the logic behind them.