As before mentioned in my midterm reflection, I still feel I have room for improvement. My greatest weakness is still procrastination. I still have the habit of waiting until the last minute to write a paper that deserves much more attention ahead of time. I feel that I did not did the proper amount of attention to all of my papers. Personal problem aside, I find that my weaknesses mostly lie within transitions and proper comma placement. I run my papers through paperrater.com and I always receive a poor score for transitional phrases. After submitting multiple papers through paperrater.com my score for transitional phrases has slowly, but steadily gone up. I have gotten a few papers back with ridiculous marks on them for comma placement. The …show more content…
I did not know comma splices were a thing until this course. As with the transitional phrases I find myself noticing the mistakes with my comma placements much more often. As for my strengths I count on my sincerity and straightforwardness in my writing. I prefer to keep my tone a tad informal when doing this. In 9th grade my English teacher told us that in any paper arguing a specific point we have to be formal and that we must use big fancy words to make anyone that we argue with feel stupid. I do not believe in that. I want my writing to be on a simple level that is easy to read and might even make the reader smile. I try to get passionate with my writing – I want my mellow and blunt emotion to resonate in my paper in a way that is endearing. I try to accomplish this with my word choice and phrasing. I feel that the best paper I did this with was my cause and effect paper on pirates. I did not take that paper too seriously and it reflected in my writing and my grade. My grade was not too great, but I am happy with it. The pirate paper was a piece that I made work with the criteria that I was mostly ignorant about, because I had never written an APA paper before and did not have a clear understanding on what they are
There are many examples of strong argumentative writing in the second half of the book Everyday Arguments. Topics of writing examples include today’s college student, the internet, sports, earning your living, diet, and reading popular culture. Of the writings, two stood out as notable works to be critiqued; Who is a Teacher, and Thoughts on Facebook.
Many films are based on historical events or information. However, the movies typically romanticize the history that they are inspired by. In Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides there are some elements of historical piracy, such as the use of privateers, women disguised as male pirates, and class on board ships. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is a Hollywood film that is inspired by historical accounts, which also uses drama and romanticism to appeal to the general public. Throughout the film there are parts of historical piracy that are shown.
Formal: Creates a distance between the writer and audience by removing most I’s and you’s, and by using elevated, specialized language. Formal tone suggests a serious, high-minded, probably well-educated audience.
In my past writing assignments it seemed to be that we were learning everything step by step, where as in college more is expected from me as a writer. As a high school student it was quite easy to push everything off till the last moment. Those two o'clock nights were very frequent when a six-page research paper was due the next day. As a college student the requirements are more challenging and not something that can be pushed back till the very last second. It seems strange to me that starting earlier for a college paper and working twice as hard on it, receiving a lower grade on it than I would have in high school is upsetting to think about, but is so true. When coming into the semester I was unaware of what was expected from me, but as the semester progressed I was able to get a better understanding of the course and how to look critically at myself as a writer. I know that these are qualities that I will use for many years to come.
By carefully analyzing my book, I encountered many stories that were written not only to connect with the reader, but also to get them engage with the subject. An example is the story Yolanda Diaz: Building her dream with hard work and strong business sense. The book said that “Like millions of people spending their
direct language and intense vocabulary. The reader can appreciate at the end of both of
Pirates have been around for a while, but over time, facts were bound to become twisted and contorted. For example, pirate Halloween costumes and television depicts pirates as bandana, scarf, and earring wearing buccaneers. However, according to Angus Konstam, a pirate expert, Howard Pyle invented this look, a late 1800’s American artist, while illustrating for a children’s book and decided to depict them as Spanish bandits instead of their typical normal sailor look (Konstam). Pyle’s interpretation withstood many years and affected how people today see pirates. Another traditional pirate concept is walking the plank. This is in most pirate films, television shows, and books. This was not typical, though, pirates behaved worse and tortured
(2009, April 15). Reuters. Retrieved January 12, 2011, from Reuters.com: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE53E2JR20090415?pageNumber=2 Thakurta, S. (2008, October 10). Somalia piracy: The world can't afford to ignore . Retrieved January 12, 2011, from Merinews: http://www.merinews.com/article/somalia-piracy-the-world-cant-afford-to-ignore/144093.shtml Wright, R. (2011, January 16).
One fictional story discussed in Under the Black Flag: The Romance and Reality of Life Among the Pirates is Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. About this book Cordingly remarked “The effect of Treasure Island on our perception of pirates cannot be overestimated. Stevenson linked pirates forever with maps, black schooners, tropical islands, and one-legged seamen with parrots on their shoulders”(7). Cordingly believes Treasure Island was a major part of forming the widespread image of pirates. Cordingly’s book compares the information in Treasure Island and other works that are similar in an attempt to find where the creative features have come
In this case the essay was informal with having the quality of his style or
Overall this semester, I believe my writing in this course has been one of my strongest areas and I am excited to keep getting better at this skill. With my mother’s help during middle and high school, my papers have improved significantly and now I think I have a firm grasp on writing for various disciplines, but particularly professional settings like social work. I picked up on APA format quickly after doing MLA for several years and it now feels like second nature to me. There are certainly still formatting areas to improve upon and learn more about, but at this stage, I think I am progressing steadily. Thirdly, I am able to find appropriate sources easily to reference in my activity analyses, which is crucial as I advance in the program.
Some of the most essential elements of style are those that deal with commas. How to use a comma and where to place one can be quite confusing at times. With Strunk and White’s chapter 1 on Elementary Rules of Usage, they go into detail with examples for writers to better understand the usage of commas.
When I started writing my entrance essay, I never thought that three weeks later I would begin writing my first
without heavy figurative language. It is not too wordy. It is also very formal. Take for example
don't think, "O.K., I have to get at least a B on this paper." Instead, I