The Importance of Writing Techniques: Comparing Chinese and English Academic Writing

There are many significant differences between Chinese academic writing and English academic writing. Most of the time, it is difficult to write essays in English for many multilingual students like me, not only because we have to translate Chinese to English, but also because of the different styles of academic writing we learned in China. However, after the first semester of the writing program, I acquired many basic concepts and tools about academic writing and these tools have helped me throughout the semester. Furthermore, these techniques are essential and necessary in order to write a successful essay. As I look through my first essay, I find countless errors and places I can improve. In my revised essay, I carefully restated my thesis statement, reconstructed my PIE paragraphs, and worked on stronger transitions words, because these three parts are the heart of a successful essay. By revising these parts, my essay is easier for reader to understand and my idea is carried out throughout the whole essay.

I completely changed my thesis statement because the original one did not have enough evidence from the text to be supported. In my original essay, my thesis statement is “the author uses various symbols to reveal us the vicious inward of Little Red Riding Hood, the wolf is portrayed as a cunning male and the color red represents her complicated personality. This thesis statement has several ideas; however, I did not find enough evidence to support these ideas, in my body paragraph, there were no quotes reflecting Little Red Riding Hood’s complicated personality, thus making it difficult for readers to understand. Furthermore, this thesis statement did not reveal the message author wants to deliver, which lacks the most im...

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...ce between my original essay and my revised essay, by using the techniques I acquired in this class; I corrected many errors with my original essay, and I feel satisfied with what I learned through this revision. As a matter of fact, not only I learned how to improve the structure of my essay, but also, I had a better understanding of the story. When I reread the story with these writing techniques in mind such as PIE, thesis and transition, I had a better interpretation of certain ideas. Also, it is more comfortable for me to write academic essays now, and this revision has given me an opportunity to test what I learned from this course. Now I am certain that if people use the correct writing techniques, they will be able to write successful essays even though their native language is not English.