Personal Review: Hi Lindiwe

We were asked to write an essay that utilized literary elements to support a central idea of the text. However, while completing this assignment, I reflected on the major strides in writing I had made since the beginning of the year. In the first body paragraph of the first writing assignment of the year I use three lengthy quotes in addition to convoluted sentences such as, “Even though Jem had disobeyed Atticus, Atticus understood that what Jem did was mature and thought-out, and Atticus respected Jem’s actions.” Conversely, in the final task for The House on Mango Street, I was able to demonstrate control in my writing. I had learned to reduce the wordiness of my writing and also that complex ideas stated in simplest terms were the most enjoyable for the reader. When explaining a quote by Mamacita, I was able to be brief but poignant showing great improvement since the first essay. Within the writing assignment, I explain that Mamacita’s lack of ability to express herself is “... represented by the metaphor of the skinny thread in the form of Spanish that acts as her only road to ‘that country.’ However that thread is being torn by ‘the man’ and his belief that English is Mamacita’s present and future while Spanish is her past.” I was able to express the complex idea of the Spanish language being a part of Mamacita and not just a language, using a minimal amount of

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

After this semester of English 102, at Bristol Community College I feel that I have gained the skill to articulate what I want to convey to the reader in many ways. I don’t just look at grammatical error, but instead I look for ways to make my sentences more effective and concise. Nevertheless, I hope that this strategy will continue to help me improve my writing even further on in the future.

Furthermore, I think the strength of my essay was my thesis and supporting ideas of the

The power of the written word, it is something I believe in; and having read an essay, I can not believe that anyone, even a college admission officer, could entirely separate their personal opinion of the essay from the academic worthiness of the student. Unlike oral traditions, the written word has stability, portability and permanence, the same piece of work may be read and reread exactly as it was first written. Writing allows us to make our thoughts visible to others; it gives us the ability to express and explain complex events, emotions, and situations. Words can wound, they can inspire, they can inflame a populace to revolution or assuage them to lasting peace; they give voice to those who would be silenced, preserve our fondest memories and offer the only true freedom some

Recognizing the source of common errors in subject-verb agreement will help you avoid these errors in your writing.

My past writing life has allowed me to learn and grow and develop my voice. The more I write, the more I understand what my voice is and how to use it. Trying to restrict myself to the five-paragraph essay structure inhibits my voice and makes it increasingly more difficult to showcase who I am as a writer in the world. When I remove that structure, I believe my voice can be heard loud and clear. When I write, I can explain my thoughts and ideas succinctly, and I believe that allows me to accomplish what I am trying to do more quickly. I am better at communicating through writing, which has been and will hopefully continue to be a great asset for me as I go through life.

When I stop to think about the memory’s that I have made during my first semester of college; there are both good and bad pieces or times that present themselves. Often with many things there are gray areas, and writing would fall in there for me. I fortunately understand now that I have times where I can over look many of my writing flaws. Such as sentence structure! This by far was my biggest problem in this class, and I fully understand why. Personally I have times that will type up a paragraph and never notice the mistake. That is until someone points it out to me. It’s almost like my brain knows that something is wrong with it, but for some unknown reason it won’t register when I’m revising my paper. So as a writer I have realized that I need to take advantage of people around me and get their feedback on my essay’s; because

Error is something that is prominent in our daily lives. It is a natural occurrence from which we as humans tend to learn from. When the question of error in writing is provoked, things are not as simple given the fact that the, “Lack of clarity about errors contradicts what is perhaps the most common belief about error in writing, namely, that errors are simply “wrong”(Lu & Horner 189). Min-Zhan Lu and Bruce Horner are English professors at the University of Louisville, who are also co-authors of Writing Conventions. In this textbook, Lu and Horner define error from many different perspectives.Throughout the chapter pertaining to error, there is supporting evidence to back up each position on what the definition of error is. In the writing,

My “best” piece is my rhetorical analysis written about a high school senior’s controversial yearbook picture. I feel that this essay in particular is the best one I wrote because it demonstrates both my strengths and weaknesses as a writer. This essay was one of the more difficult ones to write. At the beginning of the semester we focused on primarily on personal writing, “showing not telling” and the use of colorful language. For this essay, however, we focused on the academic knowledge, logic and criticism aspects of writing. Admittedly so, I disliked writing this essay. Writing this essay was a new experience for me because I had never focused on the negative aspects of someone else’s work. Re-reading my essay multiple times after receiving feedback from you made me question myself.

Also remember that writing is process which takes time to perfect. English has never been one of my favorite subjects, mainly just because I never really consider myself to be a good writer and by the normal standard I may not be. In a sense though, I found contrary to my belief that my writing wasn’t all that bad. Now it took time for me to see that for myself, because

So, you’ve got Bywater’s English 1010 class and you don’t know what to write about? Don’t worry, you are not alone. Although Professor Bywater’s class may seem intimidating, it truly is one of the most rewarding classes you will take at DSU, and it will help you throughout your college career when it comes to writing papers. Professor Bywater’s class comes with an amazing textbook titled Rules of Thumb and a checklist, or Writing Guide 101, and this checklist will save your life and your paper. Using transition sentences between paragraphs, understanding pronouns, and using the correct point of view are the most important points in Professor Bywater’s checklist, and I will show you the correct usage and implementation of all three. Read and retain the following information and you will succeed in English 1010 and gain the skills you need to succeed in college making your life, and your papers, easier.

These errors have weakened my writing and have drawn away attention from my content. I need to pay close attention in the future to these reoccurring mistakes. I have also learnt in this course that long paragraphs concerning one topic should be reviewed, and I should create a backwards outline so that I am able to break them down into several smaller paragraphs with different focal points. I have learnt how important grammar and organization is in my work and that I should not only pay attention to the content, which I have done previously. Grammar can change the whole meaning and understanding of a piece of writing, now I am well aware of this and hope to improve this throughout the rest of the course.

It was very to easy to have small mistakes in my paper. I use a couple grammar check websites to help me find any errors in my summary paper. I know that I have bad grammar so I use

Now that we are getting more involved with writing, I’m starting to get a little more stressed when writing a paper. I’m not a good writer but I know that with practice I will only get better. The tips and instructions provided in this course are definitely helping me eliminate some of my writing anxieties. The” Quick Comma Reference Sheet “is a tool I will continue to use in the future. I always seem to get nervous when writing a paper regardless of what it is. I am always worrying about the readers reading my work and finding my errors. I’m hoping that at the end of the class I will worry less and find writing enjoyable.