Where Is Your Writing?

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.

Like transforming from a caterpillar to a butterfly, my writing style transformed from something mediocre to something quite exceptional. In high school, even when I took advanced placement English and Literature courses, I was never good at writing. My writing would lack structure, reasoning, syntax, and a well-defined thesis statement. My inadequate grades on writing assignments lowered my self-esteem, so I assumed I would never enjoy writing papers because I believed I could never improve. However, since attending a university my writing style has improved far beyond my expectation. My EN 101 course enhanced my understanding of the different ways I could approach my writing. Also, it enhanced my comprehension of outlines to complete assignments. Investing quality time into my writing made a substantial difference because I became a stronger writer. Through the late nights, constant revisions, and agonizing head traumas, I learned that my writing is truly spectacular whenever I incorporate well-defined thesis statements, provide sufficient supporting evidence, and maintain a clear focus in my assignments.

It is essential to understand that classes taken in grade school do not give students a full understanding of each subject. With the topic of writing, there will always be a new lesson to learn, an aspect to improve, or a differing way to explain. Author Craig Vetter states in Bonehead Writing, “This is your enemy: a perfectly empty sheet of paper. Nothing will ever happen here except what you make happen.” Each story, essay, or response comes from a writer’s experiences. With each attempt at a new piece comes an underlying story of emotions the writer is facing. Each person’s writing is unique and the ideas people have are related to their past experiences and what they believe to be familiar with when deciding which writing style to use. As a high school student, I have learned many things about writing that helped me become the improved writer I am today, but the most essential advice I have received is practice makes perfect. Although there is no actual perfect way of writing, I have discovered that each essay I write, my writing improves. It is easier to spot mistakes, find areas to improve, and ponder elevated word choice to use.

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.

While attending writing class, I learned about the 4 steps in writing, bases for revising, organizing, and connecting specific information, and I also learned about the different types of essays such as descriptive, narrative, process, cause and effect and argumentative essay. I have been a student at Milwaukee Area Technical College for 1 semester, and over the course of my enrollment I have grown and learned more that I knew prior to attending this writing course. Participating in this writing class has taught me so much more than stuff about literature and language, it has taught me another way of expressing myself. I have learned here how to write and express myself, how to think for myself, and how to find the answers to the things that I don 't know. Most importantly I have learned how important technique, outlines and organization are. My goal in this paper is to inform writers about how my writing skills have improved.

Communication in writing skills for the past six weeks were standards information on different sorts of sources for rapidly flowing needs of today’s writers. This form of writing shows the role of strategies in writing on subjects. It demonstrated contracts between oral communication and written communication. The main ideas in this course discovery, objectives, critical thinking, and tension, valuing course resources time management, and cooperating with others (Giordano 2012). However, the skills for effective writing produce volumes of master’s level for the required resources in this way.

During my English courses throughout high school, I learned many things from writing simple journals, research papers, and a single term paper. During high school, I was laid back and procrastinated for much of my work. During the latter part of high school when I wrote my term paper my senior year, I found out that working a little every night writing a few paragraphs helped me out greatly. I was not just throwing something together just to get the grade and the paper finished. I spent time on the paper and

From elementary school to high school, I was taught that my writing had to be structured and follow strict criteria. After I arrived in Mr. Mukherjee’s ENG 102 class, I was given the opportunity to express my creative freedom through words and graphical pictures. It can often be difficult and challenging to improve upon my own writing abilities unless motived with an idea in mind. When looking back on my time at ASU, I thought about the goals that I wanted to address for myself and the course goals that my instructor had set for the class. These goals include ones that I had accomplished to the best of my ability and ones that I need to address as well as improve.

Despite my dislike for most academic writing, the importance of how it is structured and presented is not lost on me. Finding a good way to follow the conventions taught while trudging away on a project has helped me in many ways. Making sure that I will follow and grow as well has been a huge help. Growth as a writer as pointed out by Kevin Davis

There comes a time in life where we see an impossible obstacle, and do the best that we can to overcome it. For me, this was my AP English Language class in high school during senior year. The time was now, summer is nearly over. I analyzed my strengths and weaknesses, giving a full re-evaluation of myself. In the end, I consider myself an average writer. There have been times in the past when I’ve written letters or personal stories. However, those have never been my strongest set of skills. While I have been serious with my writing, I never recognized the unbelievable advantages that good writing has. Therefore, I’ve made it my goal to improve my literal skills and become a great writer. Maybe this new class will assist me in becoming that

Peter Elbow’s article talks about the necessity to write with care. In order to write well,

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

A major area for development and improvement revolves around effective note taking and essay planning/writing. As a Higher Education student you will be required to plan and produce countless essays in relation to the course you are studying, and a key point of reference to help with this would come from “The Guide to Learning and Study Skills for Higher Education and at Work” who give the following advice and tips: ‘Identify the purpose of the essay and who the audience (reader) is and what is required for both – structure your work and develop your arguments/main points – proof read your work and improve language, spelling, punctuation, grammar and style – review what you did and use feedback to improve your essay writing for the future’ (Bingham, R. and Drew, S. 2012 The guide to learning and study skills: For higher Education and at work).

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.

I believe I have achieved most of the course learning objectives as I pass this class with a c or higher. I undertook the writing process we learned in class and it has helped me become a better writer. Before I entered my freshman year of college I didn’t know how to write. But as I undertook the writing process I was taught in class I now know how to write. First when it came to writing my assignment papers for my class I grabbed a notebook and did prewriting . I brainstormed a list of ideas for my papers. I then had a plan on everything I was going to write about. I then sit down and write my first draft. I make sure my first paragraph is a strong