My English 1310 course was taught by Professor Daniel Stuart. He taught us the concept of academic writing and why it is important. Academic writing is the process of down ideas, using a formal tone, deductive reasoning and third person. Writing done to carry out the requirements of a college or university on a research based level. It requires a starting point or introduction, followed by a thesis on the preferred topic, then comes proving and disproving of the evidence based arguments. Learning academic writing is important because it is a way to communicate our thoughts clearly and originality. It helps us think and see what evidence we can come up to contribute to that thinking. This course approached this idea of academic writing by …show more content…
exploring further into rhetorical strategies and grammar. When it came to rhetorical strategies, they encouraged academic writing in so many ways. Some ways included helping us organize the facts and evidence, and providing information enabling us to show the purpose of an argument. Grammar added to the approach to academic writing by making sure that we are writing correctly and clearly. Teaching us rhetorical strategies and correct grammar enabled us to describe more complex ideas clearly and improved our thinking skills. We were asked to write 4 essays throughout the entire of this course. Each of the essays included an original version, followed by a revision memo, and last but not least a final revised version of the essay. After we completed an essay, the professor would grade our original essay and give feedback on how to further improve on our final revised essay. We then would have to take his corrections into consideration and write 2 paragraphs on how to fix our mistakes called a revision memo. The first essay we were asked to write an “Argument Description”. For this essay, it was required for the students to find the writer’s primary and secondary claims of a particular essay chosen from the Best American Essays book and describe how they work. Secondly, we were asked to write an “Argument Analysis”. In this essay, it required the same work as the “Argument Description” essay, but we were asked to find the implications about the claims stated. The next essay, Professor Stuart asked us to write was a “Genre Analysis”. The “Genre Analysis” essay required us to develop an argumentative analysis that explains the expectations of the assignments. This specific essay required us to explain the strategy and process, and evaluate how we had to adapt to the assignment. Our final essay for this course was called an “Argument in Literature”. The “Argument in Literature” essay required us to compose an argument analysis over one of the course readings and give an evaluation of the ideas proposed by the author. Within our first assigned essay, the “Argument Description”, required us to identify and describe the primary and secondary arguments from an essay chosen from the Best American Essays book. We were asked provide the evidence that the writer used to justify or support his or claims. Required us to explain how the author’s argument was arranged and how they were described through various rhetoric strategies and stylistic elements. I chose to write my argument description on an essay called “Corn-pone Opinions” by Mark Twain. For “Corn-pone Opinions” I had to first identify the primary and secondary arguments of this essay which were it’s in our nature to accommodate and that we require peer approval. I provided textual evidence from Mark Twain’s essay to justify the claims. A justification for this essay included how the “hoop skirt” supported his primary and secondary claims. Some stylistic elements found in this essay were real-world examples, along with the use of pathos and logos. After submitting my essay to my teacher, I received my feedback. Upon receiving my feedback, I had passed, but I had realized that I made a couple of mistakes within my essay. My feedback told me that I have made a few grammatical errors and some of my sentences were fragments. While creating my revision memo, I made decisions to fix all of my grammar errors and figure out a way to make my sentences complete. Turning in my final revised essay after making those corrections lead to my final revised essay grade being risen by 5 points. In the “Argument Analysis” essay, we were supposed to identify and describe the primary and secondary claims from an essay chosen from the Best American Essays book again.
The difference between the “Argument Description” and the “Argument Analysis” is that in this particular essay, we are now required to find the implications of the writer’s claim and then form our own argument. I wrote my argument analysis over an essay called “Coatesville” by John Jay Chapman. Once again, I had to identify the primary and secondary argument for the essay. The primary and secondary claims for this paper are that we are all guilty and that we need to have a mass revival. I had to provide some evidence from the text to support the claims as well. With this essay instead of stating the justifications like in the argument description, we were asked to find the implications of this essay. Some implications in this essay were the created skepticism and the unnecessary amount of pathos. When I submitted my work and received my feedback, I could see that my some of my writing skills were improving. After taking my feedback from my last essay and trying to incorporate his corrections into my next essay, I could see that my grade had slightly improved. Although when I received my feedback for this essay, I noticed that I still had a problem with fragmented sentences and that this essay was undeveloped. When I created my revision memo, I attempted to work on my fragmented sentences and tried to …show more content…
further develop my paper. Professor Stuart assigned us an essay called a “Genre Analysis”. This essay required us to develop an argumentative analysis that explains what you are expected to do in order to complete the assignment. The argument must center on how the specific writing assignment defines the work of writing. The assignment given to us was called a Problem/Solution essay. I had to write this essay, explaining what requirements the teacher had and how the students were to complete this assignment. The prompt for this assignment was called “Intercultural Viewpoints within Asian-American Studies”. To complete this assignment, the students were asked to introduce a solution to the problem they specified. The teacher requested the students to turn a 2 page typed rough draft to turn in on Monday, November 16thand a 2 copies of the 3-5 page final revised essay turned in on Tuesday, November 23rd. This teacher didn’t want this use of online material incorporated in the essay nor did the instructor want the thesis too general. When I turned in my essay, I could see the professor’s corrections and feedback was getting shorter. I still had the typical grammatical errors and sentence fragments, but there were not as many. I could see my writing skills were improving based on me actually taking the instructors corrections and advice into consideration. When I created my revision memo for this essay, I attempted to finally perfect the common mistakes I had made. Making my sentences a little longer and trying to make them more develop to achieve a higher grade on my final revised essay. The last assigned essay for this course was the “Argument in Literature” prompt.
In this essay, we were to evaluate the ideas proposed by the author. Isolating and analyzing the key claims within the text. This essay required us to provide justifications used by the author to support those claims and provide an analysis of the ideas. I chose a fictional text for this prompt called “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien. The argument from this particular story is that everyone carries a burden. The justifications that I came up with to support this claim was Lt. Jimmy Cross’ strong infatuation with a girl named Martha and how all the soldiers carried some kind of burden, either physical or emotional. I needed to provide evidence to support these justifications. Some evidence I provided to back up the justification was how a soldier named Ted Lavender died on duty and how Lt. Cross blames himself for Ted’s death because he was concentrating more on Martha than his own crew. My feedback for this assignment wasn’t that good. I didn’t fully understand the prompt and that caused me to get a bad grade on the essay. The professor said my quotes were awkwardly used in this assignment and that I needed more cohesion between my thesis and the surrounding sentences. I noticed that I still need to work on my grammar techniques. One thing I did realize about my feedback was that I had less sentence fragments, so I count that as an improvement. It wasn’t required to make a revision memo
for this essay because there was no time and it was the final essay. I still plan to make the following corrections and turn in my final revised version of this essay in order to make a better grade than on the original. Throughout my entire English 1310 course, there were multiple things that helped contribute to what we were taught in the class. Professor Stuart used a lot of discussions in the class. Everyone in the class offered their opinion on all the material we encountered during the course. The class discussions contributed to helping me learn because it provided me with extra information and different viewpoints of how others interpreted the material. Also, we ended up going to the library and taking a tour. This experience added to my learning in this course because it taught me how to find the proper materials in the library and how to accurately benefit from the sources available in the library. Another contributing factor was the individual conferences scheduled by the professor. The conference contributed because the teacher discussed the current grade I had in that class and helped me understand what I needed to do to improve my academic writing along with my grade. The Prezi PowerPoints encouraging my learning by providing me with accurate information, further helping me understand the underlying material. Peer review also played a role in my learning because it allowed us to get outside ideas or criticism for our paper, allowing us to fix the mistakes, before turning it in. In addition to all these contributing factors, the hupomnemata really benefited me the most. The hupomnemata is a journal used for writing down notes on the material and some things the professor said in class. It enabled me to take notes clearly and concisely, allowing me the ability to retain memory of what was talked about in class that day. From my English 1310 course I can honestly say I learned a lot. I learned about different rhetoric devices and literary elements. I even figured out the difference between an intrusive and extrusive proof. Before this English course, I can say my writing skills were very inadequate. I lacked the ability to properly concentrate and analyze papers. My sentences were fragments and I always had some type of grammatical errors in my work. My overall evaluation of this class is that it was very helpful. This course helped me become a better writer by providing me with the proper tools and feedback to improve on my skills. The professor was always willing to assist me in any way he could. Professor Stuart helped me learn the concept of writing and why it is important. This semester I can say I have gotten better at staying on topic and keeping my readers interested. My sentences are starting to be properly formatted and my essays are becoming more developed.
In this article written by David Bartholomae, the author discusses problems basic writers make and about how they must use the discourse (communication style) of the academic community they are writing to, to be an effective writer. Bartholomae believes that “Inventing the University," is being able to assemble and mimic the universities language(5). Which means, if a student wants to be an efficient writer, he or she must be able to speak the language of his or her audience. Bartholomae writes that a common mistake of basic writers is that they don’t use an authoritative voice, and tend to switch into a more passive voice. This could be due to the fact that students have difficulty establishing their mindset or attitude for an audience
In Downs and Wardle’s article, they argue and identify the flaws in teaching writing in college. Demonstrating the misconceptions that academic writing is universal, but rather specialized in each case. Citing studies and opinions from esteemed professionals, Downs & Wardle state their points and illuminate the problem in today’s many colleges.
Héctor L Carral, a multimedia engineer wrote an article titled Stop Saying Technology is causing Social Isolation for The Huffington Post. The author of the article has a biased option, therefore does not include any research that would refute his argument. Carral states “it’s only obvious to blame them [technology] for some of society’s problems. Carral also states I believe that accusing technology (and, again, especially smartphones) of ruining social interaction and even all kinds of experiences is, to say the least, quite wrong and misguided. There was an obvious division between the commenters who agree with Carral and those who disagree with his argument. The demographics of commentators. From observing the occupations that the commenters listed, it was apparent the people who were against Hector Carral’s article were parents and educators while the people who agreed with his
Earl Rochester’s argument is to make drinking a privilege to say, with a drinking license. This will require a “drinker’s ed class,” because it's just like driver’s ed, you have to read a manual and then take a written test what will be next a drinking portion to see if you can handle this “privilege.” I strongly disagree with Mr. Rochester not because I believe in underage drinking or alcoholism but because of the mere fact that this drinking license will not help since no matter what obstacles adolescents and alcoholics will find a way to get their hands on alcohol.
On December 2,2015 I went to to the Lynnhaven building to receive some feedback on my agreement paper for English 111. It was a very rainy day after running through the rain when I reached the writing center room. There was a yellow note saying that the writing center was in the student center until December 4,2015. After reading the note I ran back in the rain to my car.It was to cold to walk it was raining. As I approached the student center I was told by a security guard that the tutoring lab was located on the third floor. I had walked up three flights of stairs. When I had finally reached the third floor,I walk into the tutoring lab. There were about eight tables, but only four staff members and one student. Amen had approached me asking what did I need help with today. I replied saying that I would like some feedback on my paper for English. He then pointed to the writing table and said “she can assist you with your paper”.
When I first encountered the word argument in this chapter I thought that I would be informed on what an argument is and how to construct an argument in an essay. After reading the chapter I think arguments much more than creating diversity over a topic. Also, it is much more than making a claim. There are many different styles and ways to present an argument.
“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe”( Douglass). This famous quote epitomizes the philosophies of Frederick Douglass, in which he wanted everyone to be treated with dignity; if everyone was not treated with equality, no one person or property would be safe harm. His experience as a house slave, field slave and ship builder gave him the knowledge to develop into a persuasive speaker and abolitionist. In his narrative, he makes key arguments to white abolitionist and Christians on why slavery should be abolished. The key arguments that Frederick Douglass tries to vindicate are that slavery denies slaves of their identity, slavery is also detrimental for the slave owner, and slavery is ungodly.
In 2015 the author, Colleen Lynn, explains an example in detail and mentions a similar example to disprove the argument that a pit bull’s behavior is solely based in how the dog is raised. Lynn begins the article by stating the argument that the behavior of dogs are solely based on how the dog is treated is deceptive propaganda promoted by pitbull owners. She then explains that pit bulls have been bred specifically for fighting.Lynn then goes on to explain the relationship that the family had with this dog. She mentions facebook posts that the owner, and mother of the victim, had posted about the dog.
It was about using 3 sources to illuminate a particular aspect of my chosen play and to investigate some of the context of the work and to integrate the sources along with interpretation to address questions that arise in my reading of the work. My chosen play was “The Things They Carried” by Tim O 'Brien. First of of I had to come up with a question and I had to come up with a thesis that will answer the question. Before getting a review from the peer my thesis was this, “So, it can be argued that Lieutenant Jimmy Cross 's love for Martha was either a mistake or beneficial during the Vietnam war.” (Paper 3-Page 1) "Your thesis "So, it can be argued that Lieutenant Jimmy Cross 's love for Martha was either a mistake or beneficial during the Vietnam war" need to revise. You don 't need to mention argued in thesis, just need to prove it.”(Peer Review 3-Islam) I realized my peer was right, I had to write a thesis that will make the reader find out what the thesis is, I do not need to literary mention “this is the thesis”. After I change my thesis something like this, “While Jimmy Cross 's love for Martha brought his respite for the war and ultimately proved to be harmful to him, his men and his ability to be an effective leader.” This thesis seems more like stronger and arguments. Then I had to choose three secondary sources as an evidence. The part I struggled the most was finding the
Writing can be very frustrating; laying your ideas out on paper so that others can grasp the concept you are trying to convey is a very difficult task. In Writing 101 I have learned how to formulate good theses that are arguable and also how to validate articles that have to do with my topic. The most important element of a paper is the thesis statement. It captures the reader's attention and tells them what the essay is about. Having a well-structured thesis along with evidence to support that thesis are the main ingredients to a well-written essay. I have also learned how important it is to research an author’s background to ensure their credibility. This is a very important step in writing because today we can find information on a topic, however, it is not valid. By researching the author, we can see if he or she is an expert in the area and so this would make his or her information more credible. There is a ...
Writing is an important part of everyone’s life, whether we use it in school, in the workplace, as a hobby or in personal communication. It is important to have this skill because it helps us as writers to express feelings and thoughts to other people in a reasonably permanent form. Formal writing forms like essays, research papers, and articles stimulates critically thinking. This helps the writer to learn how to interpret the world around him/her in a meaningful way. In college, professors motivate students to write in a formal, coherent manner, without losing their own voice in the process. Improving your writing skills is important, in every English class that’s the main teaching point; to help students improve their writing skills. Throughout my college experience I have acknowledge that
Academic writing is a skill that styles your writing to make the piece of work easier to read and to understand. Writing an academic piece uses rules and guidelines to cover the way you write, the language that is going to be used and the format. Learning academic writing skills is important because it helps the authors work to be clear and understandable. Another important part is ensuring that the piece of writing should be fully and correctly referenced. There are important points that a nurse should learn. These are writing skills, grammar and punctuation, communication, reading nurses notes, nursing documentation and referencing.
In this course I have learned and written many essays from as small as reading responses to writing an argumentative paper. All the essays had a similar style of writing and that is that it had to have a thesis, body paragraphs, and a conclusion except for the major assignments like LEN, Argumentative Paper, Lit Review, and etc., which required more than just those three elements to writing the essay. I prefer one type of writing style to another because it lets me see the difference in my writing and if there are improvements in my writing. I do see similarities in the different essays I wrote and they are that my thesis statements are not strong enough, which is why my essays are not strong enough. Choosing a good thesis statement and having good body paragraphs are crucial to writing essays because that is the key part of the essay, which I needed work on all semester.
Each of the essays included an original version, followed by a revision memo, and last but not least a final revised version of the essay. After we completed an essay, the professor would grade our original essay and give feedback on how to further improve on our final revised essay. We then would have to take his corrections into consideration and write 2 paragraphs on how to fix our mistakes called a revision memo. The first essay we were asked to write an “Argument Description”. For this essay, it was required for the students to find the writer’s primary and secondary claims of a particular essay chosen from the Best American Essays book and describe how they work. Secondly, we were asked to write an “Argument Analysis”. In this essay it required the same work as the “Argument Description” essay, but we were asked to find the implications about the claims stated. The next essay, Professor Stuart asked us to write was a “Genre Analysis”. The “Genre Analysis” essay required us to develop an argumentative analysis that explains the expectations of the assignments. This specific essay required us to explain the strategy and process, and evaluate how we had to adapt to the assignment. Our final essay for this course was called an “Argument in Literature”. The “Argument in Literature” essay required us to compose an argument analysis over one of the course readings and give an evaluation of the ideas
This is where the writer provides ideas and arguments with corresponding analysis, interpretation and evaluation. It also requires proficiency in grammar usage which means a writer should be mindful of the rules and conventions in writing to avoid erroneous sentence structure. Consistency is one of the skills needed in academic writing by making essays free from personal feelings and biases. A clear sense of argument is very important in academic writing because in writing the thoughts of writer would be vividly expressed. One has to give ideas and perception on a certain thing in the surroundings such as real object, picture, text, artifacts, phenomena and