What Makes An Academic Text Effective

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.

I immensely struggled when writing. Taking my scrambled thoughts and uncoordinated analysis and converting it into clean and understandable words on a page was arduous. I could not express my thoughts in proper academic format. I understood the importance of writing to every subject. It was essential that I learn to condense my ideas and feeling into coherent written word. After much debate, I decided that the best way to improve my writing skills was to take an advanced English course.

Research types of writings at college helped me strengthen my writing skills because as I started to research on a topic, not only I learned more in depth, but also learned how to draw further connections outside of the course(class). I want to improve my writings in making correct connections and organizing ideas. Sometimes, I misunderstand the readings and end up making the wrong connections. In fact, my ideas are all over the place whenever I try to make connections, which does not clearly show that I have understood the assignment. These mistakes often led to downside of my grades. The most useful advice I received that helped me improve my writing is that “the word ‘writing’ actually means to put things together, so don’t be afraid of express your opinions in your writing your opinion.” This encourage me not to be afraid of writing and expressing my opinions.

Writing was never a known weakness of mine. However, I could never confidently call it a strength. Throughout the course of this semester, my writing style has evolved and I have rid my writing of many habitual mistakes. I have learned to appreciate writing much more, and enjoy the moments where my mind meets words on a paper. Creativity has always been one of my strong suits, but through this course I catered my creativity to compose a variety of essays and speeches. Likewise, public speaking is something that I did not struggle with in the past, yet the structure of the class required a video speeches which was fairly new to me. All in all, I have been able to identify and modify gaps in my composition of writing and speech as a result of this course.

A person's strength was always his weakness. When it comes to reading and writing, I have many strengths and weaknesses. My past writing and reading experiences have made me into the writer/reader that I today. Strengths help me excel in my read/write, but the weaknesses do bring me in a stump at times. When writing an essay, you can have a very high vocabulary, but not have the best of grammar. The good thing about weaknesses is that they can be worked on to be made into a strength. Many people achieve this by setting goals and making the new one harder and harder. Without strengths or weaknesses or even goals, how would people learn from their mistakes, becoming better at what they're not or achieve their aims.

Before this course, my writing exceeded above an average level, but now my writing has developed a sophisticated technique. This course pushed me to include higher comprehensive words into every piece I wrote. Continuously, I would be searching the internet for synonyms of verbs, adjectives, and nouns I wanted to include in my writings. This technique forced a maturity to emerge into my writing. As a writer, my options and understanding of diverse types of writing has improved immensely. This course allowed me to discover what forms of writing I write best, and what difficulty each type brings. My writing is strong with formal pieces, like the Prairie Meadows Scholarship Essay; pieces where I am allowed to use figurative language and make

This course offers numerous opportunities to improve our writing. In this class, I not only enhanced the skills I already had, but also learned new writing concepts. Before I took this class, I knew that my writing is poor, and I have always wanted to improve it; however, I did not know how and what aspects of writing to improve. So, I came into this class with the ambition to improve my writing, and I have accomplished my goal although there is still room for improvement. At this point of this course, I have learned the elements that successful writing is composed of, and I am now able to categorize the various techniques that can work together to define strong

In my English 1010 class, I have learned to do a number of things through writing essays. I have written a Literacy Narrative, a Discourse Community Analysis, and a Writing Research essay. Firstly, I have learned to identify how an author’s purpose, audience, genre, and context determine effective writing. The purpose of the literacy narrative was to help me understand myself better as a writer (Jones 1). My teacher was the intended audience of the narrative. The genre of the narrative was non-fiction because it was about my experience as a writer. The context of writing made my writing more interesting and more effective. All those things make effective writing because you have to know what you need to write about and who is receiving your writing. I displayed these skills by going into detail of my experiences with reading and writing through my life. In the narrative I shared how fun and exciting it was when my second grade class got the opportunity to write a book, A Book of Future Astronauts (Writing is Good).

Once again, Marian’s English department has taught me how to do that. During grade school, I had to write essays and give reports, but I never really went beyond what the rubric wanted, especially with the essays. I had a formula that I followed on every essay, and although I always got an A, I never appreciated how important good writing was until sophomore year when we had to write our research papers. At the start of the paper, every paragraph I wrote was closer to flowery prose than academic writing, but with the help of Miss Royal, I was able to transform it into academic writing that focused on informational content rather than flowery prose-like writing. During the last two years, I have had to integrate my ability to write academically with my ability to write critically. Beyond that, my ability to communicate verbally has also been improved by the English department. Although I have always been good at public speaking and never been afraid of it, the many oral reports I have given have greatly improved my style of presentation. In particular, the quarterly book reports we did with Miss Royal enabled me to refine my style to be focused more on the meaning of the book, not just the characters and plot. The ability to write and speak well will inevitably be

Life is a cycle of learning and the dissemination of what we’ve learned. In each day of our lives we learn something new to add to our list of skills and knowledge. When I first entered university, I thought the writing courses were useless and just a waste of time since we all can write. Later, however, I realized how those courses are beneficial in improving our critical thinking and communication skills not only the style of writing.

When I started the class, I believed my level of writing was at a strong point, however, as the class progressed I found out how wrong I was. I learned that I needed to work on two certain things to succeed in the class. The objectives that I have always seemed to struggle in is correcting my sentences from becoming fragmented and knowing how to successfully structure them and learning to use citation throughout my papers. Knowing to successfully apply these, I believe has made me a better writer than what I started as.

The biggest factor that plays in good writing in my opinion is how much emotion the writer puts into his or her work. Honestly, a good reader will be able to tell how much effort was put into a writing from the first couple of sentences. If the reader gets a sense of the writing trying to force words into a sentence or trying to stretch out a page you will lose your reader right then and there. If you honestly believe in what you are writing and have interest in the subject matter the reader will be able to read between the lines and actually have a feeling of being there,

I have learned and improved many skills during my time in GSW 1110. Before I took this class I was very unconfident in my academic writing abilities; however, I have greatly improved them during this last semester. I have learned how to gather and organize credible information; write to audiences with opposing viewpoints; identify the audience I am writing to and cater my writing toward them; draft texts using personalized strategies; use grammar, punctuation, and mechanics to make my writing more interesting; and think critically to synthesize multiple points of view. I believe the skills I have learned and refined will allow me to move on to further college writing classes, as well as help me for the rest of my life at work and in the community.

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.

Reading is one of my favorite pastimes. I am a tuned-in Reader, and I appreciate well written biographies. Enjoyable reading takes my mind off school work and relaxes me. I enjoy academic reading as well, but sometimes it is intense and requires much concentration. Moreover, I am a tuned in reader when it comes to academic subject’s such as; psychology, nutrition, health and history.