...Writing is largely an iterative process that improves with practice. We have done a great deal of writing and revising in this course. We have also read Timothy Flood’s Business Writing in its entirety. Reflect on your writing skills and confidence five weeks ago and consider the progress you have made. Specifically, what new skills have you added to your writer’s repertoire that will help carry you through your graduate program? Discussion I Professor and Class, What an interesting five weeks. I am so happy we’re almost done! Five weeks ago, I struggle with getting started on writing. Today, I feel my writing skills have improved tremendously. I no longer struggle with getting started and I feel I am a much stronger writer compared to five weeks ago. I think the best advice I’d obtained from Flood and Thomas was being able to communicate to a diverse audience. Both Flood and Thomas brought awareness to writing clear and concise and using proper grammar, punctuations and to reframe from using slang, big words or using words that could have multiple meanings, which can be confusing to international readers. I also learned the importance of being able to convey my written intent to my audience the first time. This will ensure that my reader understand my intent and is able to respond to my request or instructions accordingly. Lastly, I discovered when writers incorporate business-writing techniques as part of their normal writing process (writing business or...
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...My Personal Strengths and Weaknesses GEN 195 September 24, 2013 Louise Gerdes My Personal Strength and Weaknesses The most common thing employees will ask a potential employee in an interview is “What are some of your common strengths and weaknesses?” I despise this question simply because thinking about my strengths and weaknesses is not something I randomly stop and think about too often. However, that challenge was brought up in my GEN 195 class at the University of Phoenix. The only difference was that I was provided the proper resources/surveys to help me accurately recognize what some of my strengths and some of my weaknesses are. It ultimately came down to that even though my strength is organization, I struggle with writing and procrastination, so I will have to develop a set of skills in order to advance in these two areas. In order to succeed in my college career and take the next step toward my career choice of criminal justice, I know I will have to work on one of my weaknesses, which is writing. I know that writing is stressed to be important in my career choice, so taking a workshop to improve my writing skills will help me in the future. Nevertheless, I know that my academic writing will differ from the writing I will be expected to do in my career choice, so it would help me significantly if I took the time to re-read Chapter 10 and Chapter 11 of Your College Experience: Strategies of Success. I can both improve my chances of...
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...I would categorize my senior year as one of wild progression when it came to my writing. Senior year mirrors my sophomore year almost exactly when it comes to just pure progression. In that sophomore year, I greatly improved in an area that had irked me for years, the organization of content, and I grew in other critical areas throughout the course of this year. While I would consider my writing far more refined than it was in 10th grade, there are still multiple core elements that I always work to improve. The first few journals last semester echoed the thoughts of a teen who refused to take risks in his writing, who couldn’t be told his faults without a fear of personal attack. Last year the majority of my writing was for AP courses, and...
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...was younger, I hated writing. I thought it was a waste of time. As an engineering student, math and science have always been my strong suits. I always did well in English, but I didn’t enjoy it. I have always appreciated and understood logical thinking. The open air of writing was always intimidating to me. However, during my 11th grade English class, I realized I was capable. It wasn’t black and white, but rather all the colors imaginable. It was this realization that really helped me progress as a writer. A shift in paradigm made all the difference. My strong points in writing are usually fact-based works, such as research papers. My love of research branches off from my love of logic. It either is… or it isn’t. If I can choose the topic of my writing, I usually achieve a better result. Interest in the topic is what really drives me to do well with the matter at hand. I could write ten pages in a heartbeat about Ford Mustangs, but...
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...Out of all the writing I did this year, my worst piece of writing was my Julius Caesar essay. This was my worst piece of writing because I did not have good preparation and I was slightly rushed while writing the essay. The essay could only be written in one class period, so I was not able to read over my paper and check for grammatical problems. Another personal detail that made me struggle during the writing was I forgot some parts about the play and didn’t understand specific sections. Without fully understanding some parts of the play, it was difficult to analyze my evidence. A third detail that made me struggle when I was writing this essay was bad time management. When I started the essay, I did not look at the time very often, so when...
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...My writing still needs to improve in word choice and transitioning, as I tend to use the same words repetitively, and struggle with making my writing flow smoothly. To make improvements, I will read other writing pieces to see how the authors built their sentences. This will help because most writers know more about balancing out their pieces. I believe that as you learn as a reader, your writing becomes smoother and easier to understand. I will also go through my writing more often to catch any words that I’ve used multiple times already. I don’t think I’ve developed independence as a writer, because I still struggle trying to write on my own. A lot of my writing is usually done when I’m supposed to for school, rather than when I want to. This causes my writing to seem bland and forced. I think to achieve that independence, practicing more and trying to just write down random thoughts will help. I usually don’t write because I can’t think of what to write about. Writing also seems to be hard for me because I don’t usually finish my writings (if I start a story, I’ll get bored of it and leave it unfinished). In my opinion, writing can be fun when you’re writing about something you’re passionate about and interested in. Other ways I could try to achieve independence as a writer is to set small goals for myself, so the writing process will be...
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...My name is Courtney Kinnaird and I am 18 years old. I graduated from Goodpasture Christian School, and I am very excited to be here at the University of Tennessee. You can definitely say I am a very big family person. I have 2 siblings; a brother who is 22 and a sister who is 21. I played soccer all through out high school and I am planning on get involved in intramural soccer here as well. I enjoy watching Netflix and hanging out with my friends in my spare time. When it comes to college writing I would say one thing I do not struggle with is thinking of enough information to write. I think I always have plenty of information on the topic that is being discussed in the paper. Another thing I think I do well at is formatting my papers. One of my strong points is knowing when to start a new paragraph and knowing how much information I need to put in that certain paragraph. There are also several things I want to improve on when writing college papers. One thing I would like to improve on is organizing my thoughts. Another thing I struggle with is my choice of words. I am not very good at using a wide range of vocabulary in my papers. I also want to improve on my use of punctuation. Lastly, I would like to improve on thinking of better topic sentences and also the ending sentences of each paragraph. I struggle with trying to think of the last sentence in the paragraph because I do not want to repeat information, but I do what to recap what I was just discussing in the paragraph...
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...Unit 9 Project: A Magical Solution for Urban Schools Reading Intervention Programs LaKisha Overton Kaplan University CM220 Professor Kerr March 31, 2014 A Magical Solution for Urban Schools Reading Intervention Programs Reading can be the gateway to a new world. Unfortunately today there are large numbers of inner city elementary school children who struggle with reading daily. For example, “According to the 2012 Maryland School Assessment, 34.5% of Baltimore City 3rd graders are reading below grade level, a figure that is double the state average” (Baltimore City Library Project, 2014, para.1). It’s the duty of inner city school districts to make changes that will embrace the issues which are effecting the academic growth of children. The letters in words are symbols and those letters make sounds. Putting them all together equals reading, and reading is the key to a child’s future independence. That independence allows them to be positive contributors to society. As well as prepare them to maneuver daily technological advances in our society. A child without a solid reading foundation could be led on a path to becoming a high school dropout. “One in six children who are not reading proficiently in the third grade do not graduate from high school on time” (Baltimore City Library Project, 2014, para.1). Many children have low to poor academic achievement. Multisensory reading intervention can be the solution to help break the cycle of poor reading skills amongst children...
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...“Why I write/Difficult reading" Writing. One word, unlimited stories, tales, memories and also; stress. I struggle with both a mental and medical disability. This makes it so much more difficult to do everyday activities let alone something that takes long-term commitment and focus. I struggle very much when it comes to writing, reading and pretty much anything that has to do with concentration. When doing an assignment for class, for example; homework, my severe anxiety kicks in (although I suffer from it 24-7 it hit’s the ceiling when stress is involved.). I have to not only understand the work that has to be done I then have to read, re-read, look up, ask questions, attempt to understand, and re-read as I go to try to answer any questions I later have. I never knew about this column setup before and truthfully I am shocked to find that it does actually help. When reading I used to highlight, underline, keep notes or truthfully skip over words or sentences I couldn't comprehend or just couldn't pronounce. I was very lazy in my younger school years and pretended like certain words, definitions, or sentences were not important and could be skipped or omitted from the readings I was working on. I later found out that I was wrong and it was my downfall in certain assignments. I also struggle from a learning disability that I just recently found out about which also makes it frustrating when it takes hours to do an assignment that takes others minutes to...
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...beginning of the year to now, the end of the year, my writing process and skills have dramatically changed. My writing process coming into junior year was not vigorous; I would not begin the pre-write and just go straight into the writing process. Regrettably, I would procrastinate till the last night to actually begin my writing, therefore, I would rush my writing process. In addition, my evidence and commentary was poor. With this being the process for me as a writer, of course, my worse essay was the first writing assignment, the non-fiction essay. This piece of writing was a mess and I am pretty positive I did not even read over it after I was done. Luckily, I changed my habits over the course of the year and began organizing my time and writing better....
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...What Writing can do for Me Tayler Sibert Kaplan University This paper is about my personal relationship with writing. First I will be covering what I intend to gather from this course. Then I will talk about my personal goals as a writer and how I plan to reach my goals. Lastly, I will discuss what I feel writing can do for me. In this course I intend to gather a better knowledge of writing just in general, but I will only discuss a few topics. First I would love to master the APA format. My biggest problem is the proper way to cite a source in the text, along with the abstract page. Also I want to improve my grammar because I tend to fall in the bad habit of writing how I speak and that is very improper. The last topic I will discuss is my punctuation. I really am hoping this course will help me improve my punctuation. My first goal as a writer are to be able to draft legal documents properly using proper language that everyone will be able to understand. It is very important as a legal assistant that the documents that are sent to clients, witnesses, and insurance companies and properly worded, cited, and formatted or there can be a lot of trouble and miscommunication. My second goal as a writer is to be able to help my son develop good habits as a writer so English is not a hard subject for him. Helping my son would benefit him in the biggest way because I know I struggle with my writing skills because I didn’t have help at home. If I can help my son not have the...
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...describes her struggle with two language identities and how finding her voice in both Spanish and English allowed her to discover the power of language. Similarly in “Coming Into Language,” Jimmy Santiago Baca discusses how, in spite of seemingly insurmountable obstacles, language became a powerful outlet through which his life was changed. Both essays describe situations in which language and education were used as tools to empower the authors to reclaim their respective identities. I identify with the authors’ struggle to turn language and education from sources of humiliation to platforms of empowerment. Marin describes to...
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...Anitra Hatcher Academic and Professional Success November 2, 2014 Alice Walker After conducting research on several of my favorite authors, I selected Alice Walker’s life and works as the focus of this paper. Walker's accomplishments are substantial. Her novel, The Color Purple, won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book award for fiction. She has authored many other critically acclaimed works, and is recognized as a leading author in the literary world. As I began to dig deeper, however, I found the real reason that I chose to concentrate on this individual. Alice Walker is an African American woman who expresses herself and her life experiences in her writing. I feel like I am connected to the themes and characters Walker develops in her stories. I feel like I am connected to Walker herself. I have been broken in some kind of way or another. I have been abused physically and mentally. Walker has not allowed her struggles to get in the way of her success or happiness. I chose to write about her because she is a woman who faced profound struggles in her young life. She came close to giving up because of a childhood accident and an abortion. Alice Walker was a fierce and determined woman who stayed committed to her goals. Alice Walker faced many challenges. She was one of seven children. She was born in poverty to sharecropper parents on February 9, 1944. Her father was the grandson of slaves. Her father did not want her to get an education in fear that...
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...While writing this rhetorical analysis essay I have gained a significant amount of confidence in my rhetorical analysis writing ability. The main reason that I felt more confident was the experience I had from the Chipped Beef essay. I was able to go back and learn from my mistakes on that essay and correct those. That allowed me to be more confident in my writing ability and write a essay without questioning myself and knowing that I knew the correct way to do it. Many areas contributed to my success in this essay, but my most successful area in this essay was the ability to provide quality examples and to have strong analysis of those examples and how they relate to my thesis statement. In my opinion the main reasons I was able to find such successes in this area was because I knew what I did...
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...Is writing as difficult for you as Lamott says it is for her? Yes, writing is exactly as difficult for me as Lamott says it is for her. I could not have said it better. After reading this selection from Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, I let out a huge sigh of relief, as I had no idea that even expert, published writers go through the same struggles in writing that I myself do. 2. Do you write “shitty first drafts” and then clean them up and turn them in? Or do you try to work out what you’re going to say in your head first so that you write only one draft? Or do you just turn in the “shitty first draft”? In the past, I have always been extremely cautious to let anyone else read my shitty first drafts. It always pained me when a teacher would ask us to bring a rough draft to class so that others could peer-edit my work. Because of this, I developed a tendency to attempt to work out what I was going to say in my head so that I would only have one draft. I would sit at my computer for hours typing, erasing, and re-typing my work, almost as if I was cleaning up my rough draft as I was writing my rough draft. I always tried not to just turn in the shitty first draft, as I knew it was far from my best work, but sometimes I would get stuck and would ultimately be forced into turning in my shitty first draft. 3. Based on your answer to question 2, are you happy with how you go about writing? Why or why not? Overall, no, I am not happy with how I go about my writing...
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