The Quick-Comma Reference Sheet

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.

The art of writing is a complex and difficult process. Proper writing requires careful planning, revision, and proofreading. Throughout the past semester, the quality of my writing has evolved significantly. At first, I struggled with the separation of different types of paragraphs, and I found writing them laborious. Constant practice, however, has eliminated many of my original difficulties, and helped to inspire confidence in my skills. As a collegiate writer, my strength lies in my clear understanding of the fundamentals of writing, while my primary weakness is proofreading my own work.

With the anxiety flowing throughout my body, I knew the time was near of facing my English 1301 class. Being told that I needed to improve my writing during my grade school days, I knew that I didn’t feel at ease going into a college level English class. But, with this in mind I had to pull myself together to encounter the challenges that I will face. However, having the privilege of having an amazing professor I believe my writing skills improved, also I was able to find my confidence.

While reading the interview of Robin D.G. Kelley, I found it interesting how he used history as a way to support his thinking. To go step by step, explain how different points in time had in shaping racism and self-identity was something I found to be very interesting. It brought me back to when I was in AP US History in high school and we read Fredrick Douglas’ book and look at old advertisements. It was shocking to see what was put on to the public, but made sense there was such racial division—if this is what was being feed to the mass public as acceptable, how were they to go against this flow of ideas? This idea was also discussed in this interview as Kelley brings in the two groups of poor white and people of color.

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

As I look back on all of the papers that I wrote during high school, I remember all of the stress that I endured. I remember struggling with writing

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.

I have more than enough tools and resources to make my writing not only correct and neatly formatted, but to make it more enjoyable to read as well. First, page 46 of the LB handbook has been of great assistance during my writing already, using transitional statements is much easier than I thought it would be. Also, I will continue to use Paper Rater for my assignments. I have never used it before this class, but I think it is a great tool to have, especially if I am unsure of the way my writing is going so far. Additionally, the worksheets and notes we took in class regarding comma splices will be a great reference for when I am unsure of where to place my next comma. Similarly, page 236 of the LB handbook has a great set of examples for the proper use of “whom” and I am excited to review that section and use it to my advantage. Last, Dictionary.com and a thesaurus will be great resources to replace bland words and get rid of my excessive “things”. With my new-found knowledge of all the resources I have for improving vocabulary, how to incorporate more transitional statements, and knowing how and when to use a comma, my writing will improve immensely. I cannot wait to put the writing tools to the test and see what I am truly capable of when it comes to

The two errors that present the biggest challenge to me in writing are comma splice and unnecessary commas. All throughout high school and into college these two errors have been my biggest downfall. In Fall 2014 semester, I took English 111 and my teacher had written on every paper that I wrote that I have to be careful of both comma splice and unnecessary commas. I can use this class as an opportunity to correct these errors by referring back to this book. In my other class, we didn’t use a book so I never had something to help me understand what exactly I was doing wrong. I hope that with help from my classmates and my teacher I can overcome this obstacle I face in my writing. In addition, I plan to use the book to help me when I am uncertain

Coming into freshman comp at the beginning of the semester I was worried this would be my hardest class and that I would hate it. Walking in the classroom on the first day and hearing the words, “you will be writing a 10-12 page paper by the end of the semester,” gave me so much anxiety and made me very nervous for the class. As the class is now coming to a close it has made me realize I should have never been so worried about this class and that I would learn many new things I did not know about writing such as writing strategies, metacognition, and how to write a good research paper.

At first glance, the thing that may strike a reader most about this passage is the seemingly overuse of punctuation. Paul D is contemplating how risky Sethe’s love for her daughter is, turning ideas over and over in his head. The overuse of commas and a semicolon make the reader pause, consider what is written, Perhaps Paul D does not want to feel the way he does, perhaps he is considering if these thoughts are something he should voice to Sethe, perhaps he simply takes time to think. Regardless, the punctuation draws on the reader. Further, the passage is very telling of Paul D’s character. Paul D thinks ‘the best thing [... is] to love just a little bit; everything, just a little bit,’ showing that he is used to fleeting hopes. He would

Before taking this course my writing styles and habits were very different. I was the typical procrastinator because I would wait until the night before a paper was due to start it. This did not allow me enough time to properly proofread everything, which resulted in getting points deducted for simple grammatical errors that could have been avoided if I would have had the time to proofread. My writing styles have many strengths and weaknesses and I have been able to improve my writing because of them. I have learned from my strengths and weaknesses how to become a better writer.

Over the course of this past semester, my ability to write has improved tremendously. Prior to undertaking this course, my expertise in writing was not as fine-tuned as it should have been. I had never previously been enrolled in a class specifically tailored to writing-- which was quite clear. Upon reading my past works, it becomes apparent that my writing style consisted of fluff, small words, and inconsistently structured sentences. These problems have, for the most part, been remedied with the coursework I have tackled in College Writing. Rather than long, drawn out papers that take an eternity to reach the primary point, my recent work is much nicer in terms of composition and grammar. I credit these improvements to the three primary

Since beginning to write papers in English class, I have had countless successes and failures. While many of my English classes have taught me how to improve my writing, I have not learned very much in others. My most recent English class was last year, my sophomore year. My class was particularly undersized; therefore, it gave each student the opportunity to have additional individual attention. Throughout the class I experienced high points, weaknesses, and even difficulties that I never overcame. Overall, my writing skills improved, but only marginally.

Over the past few months, I have learned several different writing techniques. While all of the different types of papers were difficult to write, I believe that my writing skills have improved. In fact, I did not understand all of the assignments, but I did try to do my best on all of them. While I should have used more transitional words in between sentences and paragraphs, I feel that I learned a great deal. It is true that I have not had very much writing experience and the writing process is difficult for me. Sometimes, I do admit, it takes days to complete one assignment, but it will be worth it when I am a proficient writer.