Although I still struggle with wordiness, I have learned about using active voice, writing thesis statements, and following TIQA format which has helped me improve my writing.
By using active voice, my writing became less wordy. In my Life of Pi essay, I edited out an “is” from my sentence, “With no human companions and only the company of a Bengal tiger, isolation constantly surrounds Pi in a shroud.” Before, I would’ve written, “Pi is constantly surrounded by isolation,” which would’ve made the sentence passive. By taking out the “is”, I’ve changed the sentence to active voice and therefore made my essay shorter. Additionally, in my Things Fall Apart essay, I used strong verbs such as in the sentence, “Religion constitutes a significant
part of the Igbo culture…”. Rather than using a “to be” verb, I used the verb “constitutes” to make my writing more concise. Also, learning to correctly format thesis statements helped me make my essays more condensed. For example, in my Life of Pi essay, my thesis is, “Martel illustrates the idea that isolation causes the loss of a person’s values through Pi’s loss of religion, family, and humanity.” My thesis is straightforward and sets up the rest of my essay so that I take out any rambling. I did the same thing for my Things Fall Apart essay: “Achebe contradicts imperialistic stereotypes of Africa by depicting Africa as civilized; the Igbo have their own religion, customs, and government.” By having my thesis setup my essay, I make my entire essay more precise and take out the guesswork that I would’ve had to do before. Moreover, applying TIQA has made my writing succinct.
The point is just to let the unrestricted thoughts flow, for me most of the time it ends up being a rant that makes me look like a less than nice guy. To prove my point in the third essay for the class titled “Writing for all” the first draft was a total rant. The they say a portion of the essay had lines like “ A student would go to class, learn “... drop the E and add -ing” to make something a verb. Only to later down the line learn, doto some detail, it doesn’t always count as a verb.” making me sound pessimistic. Not something I generally would allow people to read. After a combing through the rant filled pages of that first draft I managed to salvage I created this as the better opening “A scholar may use writing as a way for us to preserve what we learned, for future generations to build off of. A book author will use writing to pull people into the book’s world of mythos and legend.” The First draft had essayed gold mired in the rant somewhere and just took rereading and picking out those lumps of gold. Which then have the opportunity to be part of the main essay after smelting or filtering it
This video was about improving your writing through avoiding contractions, be-verbs and low academic words. It was very helpful because the woman showed examples and corrected the sentences on the spot as she explained them. It was clear and concise.
J. A. Reinking & R. von der Osten, R. (2007). Strategies for successful writing: A rhetoric, research guide, reader, and handbook (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentiss Hall. ISBN: 0-13-189195-2.
Some suggestions that Zinnser makes are quite simple. You should keep your sentences uncluttered with not too many words. You should also pay close attention to your tenses as not to confuse your reader. You should be very careful about knowing what you want to write about and think it through so that it will make sense. Zinnser states that “the secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components.
In his essay “The Power of One Voice,” award-winning columnist Tony Norman wrote, “Never underestimate the power of one voice. One voice is all it takes to speak truth to power…One voice spoke the world into being. One voice shatters mountains with a whisper.” Although Norman speaks to the power of one voice, not every voice is considered equal. A voice does have power, but specific voices are heralded over others. In The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave, black woman Mary Prince’s story is only heard and voiced through the actual author, Secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society Thomas Pringle. Similarly, the main character Celie, a young, uneducated, black girl in rural Georgia, has her voice oppressed for much of Alice Walker’s novel,
I found that learning by example helped my writing greatly. One of the books we read, “The Sixth Extinction” by Elizabeth Kolbert, influenced my writing. The book is well written in an academic style that engages the reader. Her writing also flows nicely throughout every passage. I tried to
Writing is a skill that seems to be easy, but there are several mistakes a writer can make in a paper. In Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein’s, They Say, I Say, The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing, helpful tools are given to enhance people’s writings. There are variety of options that every writer should explore and later apply to improve their writing. Let’s explore these stylistic tools and how to use them to write a good paper.
The Blind Side is a 2009 film on the life of Michael Oher. Michael is a teen who overcame several obstacles, including homelessness and loneliness, to become one of the most dependable offensive linemen in the National Football League (NFL) of America. John Lee Hancock directed the film, which was based on Michael Lewis's book The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game. The film stars Quinton Aaron as Michael Oher, Tim McGraw as Sean Touhy, Sandra Bullock as Leigh Anne Touhy, and Jae Head as S.J. Touhy. I am a sassy sassy.
...ragraphs that support the argument. The easiest part of this component was actually inserting it in my essay after I understood the purpose for it, because at the beginning I was confused on the whole thesis concept. The thesis was the most challenging because I kept asking myself "Can I really argue this for five to six pages?" and also "Is this even considered a thesis statement?" I noticed that I can speak and write more effectively when I'm thinking critically and intellectually. My sentence structure has always been strong and I feel it has grown because of the practice we have had in class with finding thesis statements in our readings. My overall issue with this component of the writing process is using a justifiable argument and remembering to support my argument with claims and trying not to put unnecessary points in my paper while maintaining my ethos.
Telling your stories and allowing your voice to be heard defines who someone is. Someone that let’s their self be vulnerable while telling their stories, so that a reader can connect to the writer’s feelings. When you think of a great leader, you think of them as a great speaker. With them speaking they must have a voice in something influential to have a following. Their voice speaks to people in a way that connects to them. That’s what I wanted to do with my stories and voice.
Our voice is our primary mean of communication, and most of us can’t go for more than a couple of minutes without using it. We don’t use your voice for just talking though, our voice can be used to do a variation of things. The most obvious example would be singing. So it is obvious the human voice is a means of communication, but it is also a source of pleasure for us. The human voice is not limited to just a couple sounds, no, the human voice can make a complex range of sounds but none of this could be possible if it weren’t for the complex system you possess in your throat.
I 've never been great with words, until recently. Until someone taught me to write out what I am feeling. This technique was suggested to me because it helps to get your feelings out somewhere where they don 't eat away at you. I have always been one to hold my feelings in until they are so built up that I explode, ultimately ruining many friendships and, this year, a very important relationship.
The use of technology has led more people getting information from blog, which has been criticized by many journalists who doubt the accuracy of the information; and also in this computer age, the use of print dictionaries is fast nose-diving towards oblivion, because every word that is needed is found online. The words are very precise with their examples and one does not need an editor to know what a word means because you can easily look them up online. Students have also learned to understand that they write to the audience and therefore, have to be more creative, persuasive and organizing in their writing in order to get their point across to the audience. It is believed that the previous generation rarely put up a paragraph of their own and most students then, needed an interview before they were able to write something. But with the continuous in class writing in school and online, it has made students become adept in writing.
Even the best writers have their own flaws. Shakespire for example would make up his own words including ; bedazzled and fashionable. Those words come from his plays King of the Shrew and Troilus and Cressida. I like to think of myself as a skilled writer but I’d like to improve in writing proper conclusions and repetition of certain words.
A major flaw that I discovered in this class in my writing was my inability to write a proper and creative thesis statement. To me thesis statements are the most difficult things to write in English. I always seem to write the thesis statement to sh...