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Foundations of academic writing elements
Different academic writing styles and why is it important
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Going into this class, I was quite scared. Throughout my high school years, all the teachers would tell us that college papers are a minimum of ten pages long and the professors grade critically. I did not have English teachers in the past who guided me through my writing, they just would slap a grade on it. English was my first class of my first college day.
Throughout this semester, I have done everything that was asking. Every assignment was completed and turned in on time. I did not just complete my assignments to get them over with, I invested time and effort into writing each piece with compassion and dedication. As I look back at my papers, I believe that I was clear and to the point with each individual piece. My transitions are
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It gives me more of a range to talk about the things that interest me and it gives me more of a voice. I do not have a least favorite but if I had to choose, it would be formal papers. In formal papers, ideas must be sited and I am not entirely comfortable with yet.
I am provided with the resources that are required for each paper and I am able to find all of the information that is needed. If my paper contains an outside prospective, I try to make it relevant to the paper and make it go smoothly into the topic. There are times when I run out of topic to talk about in a paper, I do not want to make it seemed stretched or strained. So, so I often give my opinion on the topic for people to see my point of view and not entirely the research that I have done.
As I am sure everybody does at some point, I do end up have grammatical errors at time. Sometimes, I do not think I am as clear as I should be when it comes to getting my point across early in the paper. But, I do like a little suspense. All of my papers throughout my writing history have all been in MLA format. I was never taught APA format. So, doing a paper that is APA, I now know that I can go onto Purdue Owl to look up all the information needed in order to complete the
Both of the articles “Dancing with Professors” by Patricia Limerick and “Shitty First Drafts” by Anne Lamott resolve the issues faced by college students when writing papers. The first article, “Dancing with Professors,” explains why college professors expect more elaborate papers even though they assign dull and un-motivational reading to their students. On the other end of the writing spectrum, “Shitty First Drafts” explains how valuable the first draft is to students, and why students should not feel weary about writing them.
Transitioning from high school to college can be overwhelming. Before English 1301, I thought that I did not have to worry about being prepared for college. I quickly realized that my little background in writing essays was not going to be enough for college. Writing is not just something that I will use in English classes. In college, I will have to use effective writing skills in all my classes to complete research papers, essay tests and communicate to professors. Throughout my education, writing strategies persisted to be something that did not come easy to me. I dreaded writing because I could never find ways to get my thoughts down on paper. Ironically, a class that petrified me due to the amount of writing that was required ended up helping me in so many ways. English 1301 and my professor prepared me so much for college and real life.
Entering this course I was worried because I have struggled with writing in the past, and writing has never been my strongest area. I feared writing classes in middle and high school, and had the same expectations for this course. I had wondered if I was ready for college English, and was worried that my skills and abilities would not be one the level they needed to be for college courses. My attitude and understanding of my writing process have both changed since the beginning of this semester. One thing that really helped my attitude and confidence was the fact that I was able to complete the assignments and get a decent grade. I was worried that I might not be able to do college level writing, and when I started completing the assignments and learning new ways to write my confidence and attitude changed. Another thing that really helped me throughout this course was that there was plenty of reading and information available to guide me through my assignments. I realized that there was more freedom when it comes to writing than I had experienced in high school. Being able to write more freely, and the freedom to choose what subjects I would write over made the assignments more enjoyable and easier to
Over the course of this class I feel like I have become a much better writer. When I go back and look at some of my Journal entries and assignments that I did at the beginning of the semester, I can’t help but tense up at some of the things I wrote. Sometimes the things I was writing didn’t flow well, or I might have even have missed glaring grammar mistakes.
This class was far more intense than what I expected but I was able to make it through the semester. I learned a lot from this class that I will carry into the future and use in other classes. All of the revision and feedback I have received during the time in the class helped me in the end. I feel like I am gradually becoming a better writer. I will take everything that I have learned in this class and use it for future reference when writing papers. I overall have enjoyed this class this semester.
of the topic for days, form an argument, and find research that supported my claim. Now, I get
Over this entire course, we have written around 5 papers. This does not include this paper. Each of these papers were very different from each other. The types of papers varied. There was a new type of paper to write every 2 weeks usually. The papers I wrote were good but had much room for improvement in my opinion. I examined each paper after it was graded
For me, being a college writer means writing well-organized essays that readers enjoy reading. Being a well rounded writer was also important. Each unit in this class challenged me to write in a well-organized, concise way. During each unit, we conducted some sort of revision activity where I was exposed to other students’ writing. As I read their work, I picked up on their use of transition words and separation of paragraphs to make the essay flow. Naturally, I began implementing more transition words in my own work and learned the appropriate ways to split paragraphs. The structure of the class was key to the organization of my ideas which was crucial to the development of my essay. During the third unit of this class, we were asked to identify an issue on campus, conduct research on the issue, and finally propose a solution to correct the issue. At first, it was difficult to get my ideas down and figure out what it was I would research. What I learned in class allowed me to first identify the issue I would research, write a rough draft, and hear what others had written before the final paper was due. This helped me to identify the main points, brainstorm and figure out what additional research I would need to find to support my argument. Being able to organize my thoughts from the beginning made writing the paper a much easier process. This course has helped me to grow as a writer and make
Throughout high school I dealt with MLA format which I never truly understood because it was not emphasized on. Now that I am in college, however, it is a completely different story. I’m not going to say that I struggled immensely with APA format, but it did take some getting used to. Instead of freewriting where formats are thrown out the window for idea creation, I had to stick with set rules on how a paper should look and how information should be organized and presented. After a few papers with the grand finale of the “research supported cause/effect essay,” citing sources and notating references seemed much easier. Being able to use different techniques to cite sources will allow my future papers to flow and allow the reader to not be bored to death. Referencing sources properly will keep my papers from being flagged as plagiarized and authors will get their due credit because I know I would not like my work to be claimed as someone else’s. With all of the writing in the future I will need to do for college and my business writing, Writing 101 has ensured a bright start for all of
Over the past semester, I have found the most challenging part of this course to simply be the transition from high school composition classes to college. Because writing expectations are so different in college than in high school, even with AP and Dual Enrollment “college level” classes, I first found myself being overwhelmed with the pressure to write the perfect first draft. The pressure came from knowing how much a final draft of a paper contributed to my grade. This left me sitting in front of my computer for hours at a time with thoughts of what I wanted to say racing through my head, but unable to deliver these thoughts into organized, structured sentences. I learned, through writing my persuasive essay, that instead of trying to write the paper start to finish and already in its perfect form, it is easier for me to look at the paper through its different components and focus on them individually, then work to best organize my ideas fluently.
Each of these types of writings are unique and challenging. I definitely had to step out of my comfort zone and explore new ideas so that I could improve my writing ability. For example, I used peer review to help steer me in the right direction on a few of my essays. It was nice to have fellow peers commenting and criticizing my paper. I felt getting others perspectives helped me get a broader aspect on different thoughts and ideas, so that my paper would appeal to readers of all kinds.
I believe that this second quarter I have followed the “Behaviors and Attitudes” guidelines better than I did the first quarter. As we talked about in my conference first quarter, I display my academic abilities on many fronts. Like the first quarter, I threw all my ideas out to the class during Socratic seminars and I always tried to come up with answers to questions that the class is asked, so it is easy to say I contributed to the class and I engaged in the learning. I am also thorough; as you have stated when referring to my notes and how I continually refer back to the text when I write. I know that these points actively display my active participation in class and why I deserve a good grade this semester. While I have maintained my studious approach to this class, however, now that I have received feedback, I am able to say I have improved my writing and abilities
Looking through my past submissions and pieces of work throughout this past semester, I have made many realizations in regards to my progress as an English student. Through re-reading my writing, and reviewing the feedback I have received on my writing, I can recognize my growth as an English student. In addition to realizing my growth, I am also able to see a lot of areas that still need work. This past semester I have faced many challenges, I have pushed myself to go outside of my comfort zone, and I have excelled in several areas. After analyzing my past works from this semester, I have identified many re-occurring strengths and weaknesses from each unit, as well as challenges and goal assessments for myself in the future.
During the course of this class, I have had the opportunity to read literature from authors who come from different backgrounds and places in the world. Some of the stories and poetry we read were straight forward while others were confusing and sometimes required a second look. But one thing is clear, it changed the way I think about literature in a few ways that I wasn’t expecting. Three works in particular stand out in my mind. “ I Wont Let You Go” by Rabindranath Tagore, “To New York” by Leopold Senghor, and Pedro Peramo by Juan Rulfo all had an impact on my thinking for similar yet different reasons. They all incorporate their cultural backgrounds into their work through the setting of their pieces. They also compose their pieces in a way that makes you want to research their history to find the deeper meaning. Finally, a couple of the authors write about things they are emotionally connected to. Some of the examples we will look at, really opened my eyes to going beyond a superficial understanding of literature.
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