The Journey of Writing
For me, writing is exploration; and most of the time, I am surprised where the journey takes me. (Jack Dann) Writing is hard for someone who does not really consider themselves a good writer. Still it was not that hard when this Writing 101 class really was Writing 101. What I mean is that this class showed me the basics of how to write a great essay. I know my writing definitely improved over the semester; I use semicolons correctly. Well, most of the time. I just look back at my work from the beginning, and I think about how much I have improved thanks to this class. There were so many things I learned about my writing, things I would change about my essays, and I learned things I did not even know.
I learned plenty about my writing this year; stuff I have never been told before. How different types of people searched for certain things within an essay, and how they might like something that others would not. Even now I know that I am writing as a guardian because I wrote an outline for this essay, and I am now starting to type it out. My worry is the artisans reading this will not enjoy it because I know it is a little flat. I learned that maybe my essays may not be as boring as I think they are, but my punctuation needs to improve a huge amount. Out of all the essays I have done, all the teachers at the tutoring center told me to fix my comma mistakes. My Life Colors essay would have been a big improvement if I had only learned the comma rules in the first place. After I would write my essays, I would do a quick check, and then I would turn it in. For my short articles essay I know I tried hard to find all the comma errors, but it seems that I could not find them all because I received a low grade. I expect myself to type it up right the first time, and I do not realize that I misspell words, I get comma happy, or that I just dont make sense.
As I continued on in the class I also learned lots of things I did not know about.
When we started the Gold Sheet I thought I was going to die learning about all the rules for a comma. I thankfully survived it, but I know I still need a lot of work memorizing the rules. It was just so easy to understand; however, trying to actually use them in an essay still takes concentration. Then I learned about the CQ Researcher and the good sources it can give. I know I did not use it a lot in my research paper, but in my other classes it was such a help. It was nice having creditable sources for my essays; not just websites from news stations around the world. One of the last things I was a little anxious about was the cover letter we had to write. When I followed the instructions Ms. OHara gave for them I would have gotten money from one person. I was so happy that at least one person told me something was good. Now I have to go through my essay, find all my mistakes, and fix them.
Looking back at my essays, there are lots of things I would change. I would change several of the grammar and punctuation in my essays; they were not that well thought out. I can not say that this essays punctuation will be any better than the others, but I hope that this essay will just be better. When the teachers came in to read my scholarship essay, they each told me they would have given me money if I fixed the grammar in my essay. I know that I would rearrange all the paragraphs, or just change them completely if I had the chance. Sometimes some of my essays carried what I thought were unnecessary paragraphs that just did not seem important. I would go back and just rewrite some of the paragraphs so that they seemed better. That being said, I would definitely spend more time on my essays trying to improve them. This was my first real college semester, and I thought I could handle it all easily. I wish I had planned more time to get the essays done; it just seems that I would throw out the first draft and it would be good enough.
In conclusion, this year taught me so much about the things I needed to learn about my writing. I am happy that I learned so much about my writing, things I would change about my essays, and I learned things I did not even know. Now looking back at my essays I would have done many things so different to make them much more interesting. This class really was a journey into my writing, and I am glad that I learned so much.
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Nine Steps to Writing a Successful College Essayby timwarneka46,365 views
Boring
Spevooo 11 months ago