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Strategies for writing at the college level
What I have learned about college level writing
What I have learned about college level writing
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Recommended: Strategies for writing at the college level
Expectations for College Writing Summary Students view college writing as an important outlet to express themselves in an efficient technique. Writing seems simple to a few but challenging for others. The author of Expectations for College Writing explains various tips to succeed in writing. According to the author, communication has no set uniform restriction of style. Many unique styles appear in all forms of writing. For all styles of writing, make sure grammar, spelling, punctuations, etc., exhibit throughout. When writing, remember to write in a clear and direct manner. Have confidence revealing facts or knowledge and provide examples when needed to help back up the thesis and sub points and to allow for more information about the writing.
The focal point of Chapter 4 of Successful College Writing is on how to critically read and decipher text and visuals. It highlights the importance of not just looking at the surface of the words, but diving into their true meaning. Authors put every word and picture into their work for a reason, and it is your job to ensure that you do not fall victim to biases and false information. It is crucial to learn how to identify author's tones, opinions, and overall purpose in their writings. Learning how to analyze these patterns will better equip you in acquiring accurate information and also not adopting these deceptive techniques yourself.
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.
‘Helping students meet the challenges of academic writing’ by Fernsten and Reda is an interesting study how reflective writing practices can be useful for marginalized students, who are struggling with “negative writer self-identity. The possible causes according to Fernsten & Reda are, “issues such as race, class and gender that are marginalized factors for many basic writers”, in addition to the expectations of the dominant academic culture. However, even though Fernsten & Reda illuminated the ‘potential conflicts’ within the academic world, they have failed to provide conclusive evidence that supports their argument regarding their solution. Their reliance on dated research that provides a one sided historical perspective, may no longer accurately reflect current socio/economic issues. In addition, education has been evolving to an inclusive curriculum approach, as immigrated children enter the school system in record numbers. “Persons obtaining legal permanent status in the U.S from the year 2000-2010 are roughly eleven million” (Homeland Security,pg.10/2010). Fernsten & Reda’s confidence of their own limited teaching practices without legitimate comparables from an empirical study leads to their underlying assumptions about the true effectiveness of reflective writing strategies and the causes they believe are associated to a student’s socio/economic background.
College writing has numerous aspects. Successful College Writing by Kathleen T. McWhorter does well in covering many of those aspects. Consisting of a good deal of example essays, Successful College Writing helps students learn about the different parts of making a quality formal essay. Some of the example essays in the book work hand-in-hand in getting points across. Two that work well together are Dearly Disconnected by Ian Frazier and Is Sharing Files Online Killing Music? by Jonathan Adamczak. Both display how to write about topics like change. Since the two essays have similar writing styles and topics, it would do a student well to review them.
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
This article is written by Lenin Irvin, who presents the challenges that students have to face when they are required to write academic writing tasks in college and introduces to students to what Academic writing is like. To start off the article introduces "Myths about writing". These myths are misconceptions that students tend to use as rules for a perfect writing. However these don’t just not help, but also lead them to failure. The author also states a crucial step which is developing the “writer sense” .This “writer sense” refers to the awareness of the writing situation in general. In a writing piece a student should see the difference between speaking and writing the article and use the correct punctuation and choice the appropriated
The transition between a high school education environments to a college level environment, can be a challenge for a high percentage of first year students due to the disadvantages of each individual school systems focus on learning, and the determination of the student themselves. It requires an individual to adjust from the focus of a teacher centered learning to include learner centered environments together in a whole, improve the communication between the student and professor; compared to a student and high school teacher’s lack of communication, and to improve strategies to combine their time management with each individual course into their outside lives. When going through the quick paced transition from high school, institute, and then to a college, I have found that each
College writing professors teach writing in a variety of ways around the United States and the world. The reason for this is that some professors are trying to teach their students a different aspect of writing an essay or a paper. Two views on this particular subject that I found interesting were Maxine Hairston’s essay "Diversity, Ideology, and Teaching Writing" and also Thomas Bray’s newspaper article "Memorial Day and Multiculturalism". These essays are two totally different views on how diversity and multiculturalism is to be applied in America or taught in the college writing classroom.
I hear inner Strunk and White voices of “don’t overwrite”, “write in a way that comes naturally,” and so forth, going through my head. I have visions of endless Williams examples and illustrations on clarity. I see weeks of blog writings flashing through my memory. From all of this, I now own and believe in a firm and personal definition of what style is and what good writing entails. William Strunk and E.B. White’s book The Elements of Style, along with Joseph M. Williams’s book Style Toward Clarity and Grace helped lead me to this point, which is: what is the point?
Vandermey, R. (2012). The College Writer: A Guide to Thinking, Writing, and Researching (4th Ed.). Boston: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning. Retrieved January 7, 2018, from
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
This semester was my very first semester as a college student. Being the first, it was probably the semester I would learn the most in. I learned the expectations for writing that I will have to live up to for the next four years of my college career. Though my high school teachers were usually demanding because I was in the Honors English section throughout high school, writing in college has still ?raised the bar? for me. Also, in high school, we would have weeks to pick a topic, create a thesis, outline the paper, write the paper, and then revise the paper. In college, the time restraints are not quite as lenient. I?ve had to learn to manage my time and be more productive with what free moments I have. Strangely enough, I?ve found the college English experience to be much more rewarding and enjoyable than in high school.
For this report I will be studying the key communication concepts and analyses the responses and develop actions for improvement to my self. I will start with the explanations and identities of my personal style within listening and responding & Emotional Intelligence as well as make some references to these communication dimensions. Also in the report would be provided an interview to my friends to meet information about my communication style from different perspective. Then report will finish by myself-reflection to the response and develop actions for improvement.
Writing, in general, is a way of being able to express one’s feelings and opinions about something, as well as a way of showing the amount of information someone had researched, or the amount of knowledge that the writer knows. College writing is being able to write and fulfill that purpose in an orderly structure, meaning that the written work is neatly organized. There are different ways of writing that will vary depending on the student’s major in college; there are many different types of writing that a student can apply to, like writing argumentative essays, research papers, or lab reports. I believe college writing is writing that is mainly on how well an individual is able to write, and not about a student’s grade level, so it shouldn’t be categorized as “college” writing. This type of writing should consist of little to no errors, filled with accurate information, flows smoothly, contains “big words,” that shows the vast amount of vocabulary that the student knows and can use, which shows how many words the writer knows and indicates lots of knowledge, and has a distinct writing style/voice of that writer.
The transition between high school to college is sudden, stressful, and intimidating. Although I am not truly in college, I have chosen to enhance my curriculum by taking a college writing class as a senior. Writing has always been one of my strengths since I come from a household of english majors. However, writing has never been a passion of mine and in result I would write just to complete the assignment instead of truly diving deep into the subject. Nevertheless, from the beginning of this course I have been pushed to enhance my writing past the point of completing the assignment. While reading over my many rough drafts, I begin to ask myself how do I take my writing to the next step? Throughout the past nine weeks I have not only learned