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Essay about improving writing skills
Getting good writing
How i improved my writing skills essay
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The first step to being successful, no matter what you’re trying to succeed, is to recognize your weak points, your strengths, and your limits. I myself know that I have several, and when I say several, I mean several, weak points when it comes to writing papers. The first and most lethal to a student who wishes to be well, is procrastination. I will always put writing a paper off till the last minute. In fact, I’m doing it right now as I’m writing this. I’m already doing what I say I’m not supposed to be doing. You can probably tell that I’m off to a great start. The next on the list of things that will brutally murder a student who wishes to do well in a class are distractions. Of course there is a multitude of things that can distract you at any time, especially shiny objects, though I have found that I am most venerable to distractions that take the form of sounds when I am trying to write a paper. To counter this, I do something that kind-of contradicts itself, though that is the most important part of discovering your weaknesses. You have to do something about them, and get over them. That is what this paper is all about; getting over my problems and issues with writing so that I can become a better writer (and by reading this you might learn a thing or two yourself).
Writing, as you know, can be a very long and painstaking process, which sometimes causes me to want to gouge my eyes out with an ice cream spoon. I rather like to think that the latter would be less painful, but me not having done so, I would not know. I think this because it is so boring to me that I would do just about anything to make it stop. So, this then leads to me putting off the painful process until the last minute because I don’t want to do it, whi...
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...ad of just skimming it and saying, “Great job.” There’s something else that will help a student like me too, and it is called…SPELL CHECK! This can be a lifesaver to someone who has to type all of their papers (me) because it doesn’t care about your subject; all that it cares about is if you’re grammatically correct and if you can spell! Without spell check, I probably would fail my English class.
Of course this is not what a good student wants to happen, a.k.a. me, so I am going to use this plus all of other my recourses. This list mainly consists of the Student Center, my literature book, and some things that you might not even think about right off the bat like music and anti-procrastination spray (it’s like bug spray, but better). I know that these things don’t sound like much, but when combined together, they can take a good paper and turn it into a great one.
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.
Other than learning how to argue (my boyfriend loves my new ability) I learned how to source my research using MLA format. This new skill is tremendously important in college because most professors, if not all, require their papers to be submitted using MLA format. Throughout my upcoming years at Valencia and then The University of Central Florida I will find writing papers significantly easier because sourcing will be practically second nature. In class we were taught how to use the in-text reference throughout our papers, build our own citation and how to set up our work cited page. Although in high school we used the MLA format for papers, prior to taking this class I hadn’t noticed how many small details go into the actual citation, the authors name is last name then first name, the commas must be in the proper place, page numbers etc. In some classes you “learn” how to do things however it is only stored in short term memory because you don’t consider it an important attribute or useful for future classes. Personally, I made sure I knew how to do MLA, every aspect of it, I reviewed the rules, did my assignments, and then reviewed my assignments in order to store this new skill in long term memory. By doing this I have successfully transferred the information to long term memory and made it into a skill.
As I look back into my high school years, I thought I wrote papers well. But then coming into a college environment, my papers were mediocre. By overlooking at my past papers, I found that they were unorganized, sloppy and had bad use of diction. From now on, I will use the tools I learned in English 1100-40 as a foundation for the future papers I intend on writing in college. Following the criteria of organizing ideas so that they flow, impacting the reader with diction and also by being creative, will help become an ideal writer. Following the criteria of staying motivated in short and long term goals, taking responsibility for actions and finally the ability to study well will help me develop into a supreme student.
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.
of paper, as well as not writing the paper the night before it’s due. I know the importance of getting a
I give in. My passion for writing is growing larger and larger each day, it has become the only thing I think about on a daily basis. It’s turning into a nuisance! I curse it to the back of my head every time it comes to fore thought. It twists my guts into an almost wrenching pain when I don’t have the chance to write something down on a piece of paper and make it my own. It forces the air from my chest as if I were a cartoon character with an anvil flattened. Where did I get this from, you ask? Let me tell you a story that explains my passion. Sit back, and enjoy the ride.
When trying to think of a positive writing experience I have had in my lifetime, particularly as a small child, I could not think of any. So I began to ask myself why is it that I do not like writing, what happened in my life for me to have such animosity towards the act. I was finally able to think of an event and realized that it had all begun in the 3rd grade. One day, as a punishment for talking during class, I was kept inside during recess and was forced to write Wise Old Owls until my hands began to cramp. For 45 minutes, I was only allowed to write the same old phrase over and over again; “The wise old owl sat on an oak, the more he heard, the less he spoke, the less he spoke the more he heard, why can’t I be like that wise old bird”. To this day I can still remember that little rhyme and to this day I can remember that same feeling I felt as a elementary school student. From that point on I have always had an aversion for writing, it always seemed like a punishment. I still do not understand how people can journal. I don’t see how someone can sit down and write an entry or a novel just for the hell of it. It seems unnatural to me, but I guess that all of these feelings are just because I see writing as a punishment, an
I am sitting in my bed, thinking about my process of writing as I am trying to go through it. It seems the more I think about it, the less I understand it. When I am writing, I don’t think. Which I know, sounds bad. But, I spend every single moment of every single day over thinking, over analyzing, and over assuming every aspect of my life. When I’m writing, I’m free from that for just a little bit. Until of course, my hands stop typing or the pencil (no pens- never pens) stops moving, then I’m right back on the carousel that is my brain. Heidi Estrem says, “...writers use writing to generate knowledge that they didn’t have before.” (Writing is a Knowledge-Making Activity 18). I believe my ability to write without an exact destination
In Peter Elbows’ essay “Freewriting,” he emphasizes the importance of freewriting to improve the writing skills. He suggests writing “at least three times per week” 10 minutes per day in a piece of paper “whatever is on your mind”. Elbow stresses that the writing should be done without stopping, just writing every thought as they come to mind because, in the process, we tend to do “premature editing” of our “mistakes,” “bad writing,” or “unacceptable thoughts and feelings” making our writing “dead.” He explains that in the writing process, we are editing while producing, which it carries an “unnecessary burden” when we look for words and simultaneously worry if they are the correct ones. He believes that our writing skills can be bettered by regular practice of freewriting. The author finalizes that our writing has a voice, which is our “main source of power” that catch readers attention. It depends on us as writers to make it into something better. A voice that will be better heard by the reader.
Throughout my entire writing career I have always had difficulty writing. For one I have never enjoyed it because I am usually not interested in the topic. I also seem to get writers block half way thru whenever I write a paper. My final big problem with writing is that I always procrastinate before I have a paper due. My main problems with writing are procrastinating and having writers block.
Second, I have never really enjoyed writing. I just tried to make the best of it when I was forced to endure it. It seems I have a tendency to focus on the tasks I enjoy doing most and turning away from the difficult ones. I feel if I take care of the "easy stuff" I can get more done. This is why I save the hardest for last. Now that I have returned to college, my hardest task has become my first chore. Can you see the irony?
...ople need to take some pride in their work. If you have a paper due tomorrow, don’t go out with your friends and drink and then come in at midnight and try writing. You may not particularly like doing work. You may not like the class, but the work you do is a representation of you, so do your best work!
For the forty odd pages we wrote for this class, I feel that the overall achievement was getting practice. I wasn’t required to write many papers in high school so for me the constant writing was helpful for me. I can really tell a difference in the way that I write now from the way that I wrote at the start of this year. I’m really looking forward to next year, because seeing yourself improve over a short amount of time really is
thing about me is that I hate writing anything with a pen and a paper. Most of the time
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.