Over the course of my life as a writer I have struggled through much, and have also learned much about writing. I have never considered myself a writer, and for the life of me have always despised it. Even as I am writing this paper right now, I am in no way enjoying the struggle to figure out how to make words work together on paper, but to my surprise that does not make me a bad writer. Many a time I have been told I write rather well, though I struggle through every moment of it. Each writer has their strengths and weaknesses and sometimes I believe I am more of a weak writer than I am a strong writer, but to my surprise yet again having both the good and the bad in a writing pieced doesn’t make it bad, just different. In high school I …show more content…
I have graduated high school and am now in college, taking a simple English 1101 course with Professor Flournoy. First day of class I walk in to find yet another tall and slender blonde lady. I thought to myself, “oh no, not again”. There was however something different about this tall and slender blonde lady. Unlike Lawson she was peppy and happy to be in class, and looked overjoyed to teach and make an impact on yet another group of students (A quality I admire in someone who works in education) and by the end of the semester she had made that impact. Throughout the course my class had three main essays, our view on a language barrier in world, a satirical piece, and a rhetorical analysis, and it wasn’t until the end that I had realized much more about myself. By far my first essay was the best, mainly because I was telling a story and trying to describe every detail I could to my reader. The second piece I really didn’t know how to write, there are so many forms of satire and I personally didn’t know where or how to start and where or how to end, thus that essay was not as great. Lastly was the Rhetorical Analysis which was better, but I still thought that it could have been …show more content…
I found that my strengths and the little enjoyment I get from writing comes from telling a story. It’s fun for me to recall real life events and explain them to people and if the story is told well, I love seeing the reaction from people and hearing the compliments I get. It is truly an invigorating experience. Sometimes I’ll even admit that I sprinkle in extra bits of information that might not necessarily be true to make the story better or I’ll over exaggerate and experience or feeling I had to give the story more meaning. Though for the piece I am writing now I promise it is 100% honest no sprinkling or exaggeration was done in the making of the revision project. Writing is definitely an interesting thing, many times as a writer I try to be a one and done writer. Write it once, do minor edits to it and I am through after that. When it comes to major revisions I must admit I struggle with those. I have a hard time pulling out bad pieces and leaving good pieces. Most of the time if it’s really bad I start over and forget about revising and go straight back to the one and done plan. Though in my first semester in my first college English class I improved a ton, just based off of seeing and being inspired by the works of others and hearing one thing from Professor
Several people have trouble writing college level essays and believe that they are unable to improve their writing skills. In “the Inspired Writer vs. The Real Writer,” Sarah Allen argues how no one is born naturally good at writing. Sarah Allen also states how even professional writers have trouble with the task of writing. Others, such as Lennie Irvin, agree. In Irvin’s article “What is ‘Academic’ Writing?” states how there are misconceptions about writing. Furthermore, Mike Bunn’s article “How to Read Like a Writer” shows ways on how one can improve their writing skills. Allen, Bunn, and Irvin are correct to say how no one is born naturally good writers. Now that we know this, we should find ways to help improve our writing skills, and
Lamott suggests in “Shitty First Drafts” that many people imagine good writers as being able to miraculously put out a complete and polished piece of work in one sitting. She also plainly reminds the reader that this is an idealized fantasy. Writing is hard work, and it can be very intimidating. To overcome this, she offers the
In the past three months I feel like I have accomplished a great deal. As the semester comes to an end I find myself reflecting not only how I have survived the first semester but also what I have learned. The most important thing I have learned so far is how to become a better writer. I did not think it could really happen to me. I did not think I could handle all the work. I did not think I could actually become a better writer. Some how after all the hours of writing, and putting effort into the papers that I wrote this semester, I became a better writer. I did this because I concentrated on two very important areas, with the attitude of, if I could just become better in those then I would become a better writer. With help from an awesome teacher and a reliable tutor I have become a better writer by improving my skills in the areas of procrastination and content.
Writing has incessantly been a struggle throughout my short life. Within writing, everyone possesses the entirety of tools needed to produce greatness, but many lack in the manufacturing of the product. You may have the greatest ideas for novels and short stories, though be unable to truly express yourself within the confines of only words. This precise issue faces me on a daily basis. All these exceptional visions spinning in my mind, yet I have not been able to master the art of putting these visions onto paper. However, I do admit I have grown as a writer over this single semester, and have major goals set for myself, not only as a writer but also in my career field.
As writers, many students write to the expectations of their professors and not to their fullest potential. Throughout English 101 I had been writing only to please my professor or to fill the basic requirement to pass English. I always felt that my writing ability was never enough for my professors throughout the previous years. They always wanted clear and concise essays, which for some reason was unreachable by me. However, starting college and taking English 101 helped me with my weaknesses and changed my technique of writing essays. My experience in English 101 taught me to write to my fullest potential and to write what I felt; rather then writing what was required.
Writing and reading are two essential skills that we need to have in order to succeed in any field of study that we have chosen. Without these two we would not be here, wouldn’t be writing right now and would be considered the lowest class of our society. There are different aspects of writing that each of us may, or may not, excel at. Some of us are creative enough to write short stories or even novels on fiction while others, like me, are better at writing essays. To accomplish this we have all had a person to inspire us, to drive us, to get us over the hump of confidence that we need to succeed. Still to be successful we need to count on ourselves to succeed.
Writing is a way in which a person can express their thoughts and ideas through the use of words. Everybody has their own writing styles. Some may consider theirs as inspirational while others think of it to be bad. Writing requires a lot of patience and time. In my case, writing has never been my favorite thing to do. I am no Shakespeare and I never will be, writing has always made me feel uncomfortable. In the past, I had always considered writing to be one of the most difficult tasks. I often wrote about topics that were not of my interest. I rarely did any writing out of school or for leisure as most people do. I only wrote because the teacher asked us to. Writing has always been forced onto me. Even though my writing isn't that great, I've felt that I've never been given the freedom to express my voice. Academic writing has always made me anxious. And, anxiety had resulted in my procrastination. Even though I consider writing to be one of the toughest tasks, I've felt that giving myself enough time to think allows me to do better. Silence helps me think beyond horizons. However, the fear of impressing someone, the anxiety and frustration is what makes me a developing writer.
At first, it wasn’t easy to write and appreciate my writing, because I used to compare my writing to professional writing, and the first thing that came to my mind was that my writing was horrible. Later on I started to view writing in a different perspective. This was when I realized that not everyone writes about the same thing, and that every writer has their own ideas and way of writing.
Despite my best efforts, writing remains a source of self-doubt and frustration. However, something has changed this year. Maybe it was the encouragement of the many different English teachers that cycled through, or maybe it was my personal
Writing is a very intricate skill that requires ample practice and exposure. For some, writing comes naturally with little to no dilemmas, however; for others writing is a rigorous task that imposes constant hindrances. Based on research findings, those who experience obstacles with writing tend to be overly focused on certain writing rules. In the article, Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of Language: A Cognitivist Analysis of Writers Block, Mike Rose conducts a study on several college students. He discovers that the students who base their writing off of a strict set of rules, tend to experience writers block, another set of students who incline to write freely, with little to no concern for rules face minimal difficulty when writing. Anne Lamott discusses her view on
Some of the complications I face with writing is not using enough body paragraphs, forgetting a thesis statement, lack of word choice, punctuation errors, etc. I am unaware at times of my mistakes, but I always try to correct them. I have also come to terms with my strengths and weaknesses as a writer.... ... middle of paper ...
Good writing is often thought to be subjective; it depends on the opinion of the reader whether the writing is “good” or not. However, there are some elements that make writing inherently good or bad. The main goal of writing is to convey a message of some sort. If the message and necessary information have been transferred, then it is effective writing that makes it at least somewhat good because its purpose has been achieve. While this is one criteria for good writing, great writing expects slightly more. Great writing has to express the information it is intended to in a way that is conducive to understanding with a style and voice appropriate for the medium of the writing. We explored this idea at the beginning of the semester when we looked as eight samples of writing and
Over the period of time that I was in this course, I thought it would be a very simple and easy to finish class. But as time went on, I found myself to be demanded more of what I think, what I feel, what must be relied on my ability to understand the concepts and conventions of not only the essays, but of what goes on in the writers mind when writing.
Before entering this class, I thought I was prepared for college English. I had incredibly capable high school English teachers, who taught me detailed mechanics, creative writing style, and of course, the necessity of practicing good grammar. On entering this class, I quickly realized how little I had actually learned in my high school English classes. While most of my high school English essays I wrote were based on literature, the majority of the essays I wrote in this class have been more experiential and centered on real-life issues. I expected to be writing essays on books I read and articles I analyzed, but that was not the case. This class showed me in a variety of ways that things are often very different than they seem originally
Learning to further expand my knowledge of how to properly write a college essay has been a fulfilling journey. In high school, advance placement English was the most pivotal class for me because it required me to think and perform on a higher level. I felt as if I could I mastered how to convey my thoughts into a essay, but after receiving my first college English 1101 grade back, I realized I did no master the skill as well as I thought I did. I received an eighty on my first paper, this was a huge shock considering that I received all A’s on all my English papers in high school. My grade was justified considering I made plenty of broad statements like “The color choice used by Rosenbaum is genius”, and did not give further explanation on the statement. Luckily, Professor Gallagher offered extra credit if I submitted a post write reflecting on what I did well and what I can improve on. Though the extra two points on my paper was fantastic, the