My Writing Knowledge

While looking over the material for this paper my first thought was I’m hungry. This is probably not a typical thought when trying to prepare an English paper. However, it gave me an interesting thought. Writing a paper is like making a cheeseburger. Aside from my cheeseburger idea I also attended a college preparatory high school and have also taken other English courses while in the Marine Corps. To make a cheeseburger you start off with the bottom bun. This is the introductory paragraph of your paper. The outside bottom of the bun is plain bread which is general, and this is the first sentence of your introductory paragraph. Moving up the bun it becomes more specific by either frying it, adding butter or mayonnaise. You make the rest of the paragraph more specific to lead into the following paragraph. The next paragraph is the first piece of meat. In relation to writing a paper this is your first main topic, a bold statement that the writer is trying to get across to the reader. This paragraph must contain the information gathered from research. Paraphrasing is a good way to incorporate your knowledge and understanding of the research and in doing this it explains the topic to the reader. The third paragraph is the cheese of the cheeseburger. This is a good place to add the details and quotes of the research to the paper. When using quotes you must cite them correctly to give credit to the author. By using facts and statistics it supports the first topic and what you wrote to make the argument stronger. Moving to the second topic or the second piece of meat; this topic will be different but still relate to the first topic to help support your thesis. You will want to try and use a different writing style at this point to keep the reader’s attention. This will also help keep you focused on your paper. When writing an actual paper you will have more than two main points but this is a shortened example of how your paper will look. Your next paragraph will be more detailed about your second topic. This is what I consider the condiments of the cheeseburger. Here is where you want to put your ketchup mustard and pickles to add some flavor to the cheeseburger. In correlation to the paper this is the paragraph that you take the knowledge you have learned from the research and put in your personal thoughts. This tells the reader what you have learned and how it supports your thesis. The final paragraph of your paper is the top bun of the cheeseburger. In this paragraph the writer sums up the paper into a few short sentences. This is the most specific part of the paragraph. The bottom of the top bun is where the butter, mayonnaise, and fried part of the bun is. The last few sentences of the paragraph become more general which is similar to the rest of the bun just being bread. The very last sentence the writer should make stand out from the rest of the paragraph making a lasting impression on the reader. This is the finishing touch to the paper like the sesame seeds on the top of the bun. Education has played a key role in my understanding of the English Language and writing research papers. I attended Dominican High School which is a college preparatory school for my high school career. All four years consisted of at least one English class. From day one of freshman year the faculty explained how important it was to understand the correct format to writing a paper, grammar and speaking in public. At least once a month I was required to write a paper, either research or an essay. My format was excellent on my first research paper and because of this my teacher asked if I had received help of any kind. I explained that the only help I received was from my mother, and all she did was proofread, check for spelling and grammatical errors. Over the next three years I received many compliments on the structure of my papers from different English teachers. In the year 2006 I joined the Marine Corps. Rank advancement requires many things, one of them being the completion of MCI’s. These are educational courses you complete independently. You must have seven completed to advance. Out of the hundreds of MCI’s a few of them have to deal with English and grammar. To complete an MCI you must take a multiple choice test about grammar and then write a paper on a topic they provide. After completing this particular MCI I received a letter from Headquarters Marine Corps praising me on how well my paper was written and asked me if I would write for the Marine Corps Times. This is the official paper of the Marine Corps. When I was able to check the score of the MCI’s I received a 90% or higher on three of the English MCI’s that I did. This was the last time I wrote a paper until I attended ITT-Tech. To my knowledge I earned an A on all of my papers as well as an A in the course of Strategies of the Technical Professional. My final thoughts are that I have explained the proper format on writing a paper while comparing it to a cheeseburger, which is something simple for everyone to understand. I feel that with my past writing experiences that taking the Composition 1 course would be redundant for me and a waste of the school’s time. I am confident in my writing capabilities and feel that Composition 1 would not help in expanding my writing abilities.