...Writing and Myself | Matthew McMahonUNIV104-1402B-18: Academic and Career SuccessJune 22, 2014 | When I first enrolled into this course, I felt all different kinds of emotions and wasn’t exactly sure what to expect from UNIV104. I would have thoughts in my head leading up to this class spinning in my head every night before the first day. Some thoughts like, “Maybe this will be my best class!” and “This class will be easy because I love writing!” were good thoughts that helped me boost my confidence about my college course. Other thoughts loomed in my head as well such as, “Do I really belong in this class?”, and “I’m probably going to fail this class with just one assignment!” Such thoughts as these brought my spirits and gave me a pessimistic outlook on this class. But now that I am done with this class, I find myself to be more at ease with myself and have a newfound confidence in the way that write. Writing has been an important form of expression for me. I find myself to be very soft spoken and speaking verbally is usually difficult for me because I can’t always seem to find the right words to say. This has led me to be very shy in class. With writing, I feel that I am more expressive and have more control over what I want to say. Writing is therapeutic for me, whatever I cannot say directly I can just pour out my heart and soul. I have been keeping a journal for the past eight years and it has done wonders for me. I find myself not only...
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...study at. However, it was totally different from what I had imagined and what I was actually experiencing. My English 1A class involved academic writing essay. In the class, there are people who come from different countries surround me. I felt nervous and began to second guess myself about writing skills. In this class, I should write eight essay in total, and I knew I failed the class already. But I didn’t give up, because I just want to improve myself. Writing in other language with academic knowledge is the most difficult part in my university life. There are four in class essay, which I should wrote it in the class by forty-five minutes at least 800 words, but I did not make it even once. My classmates are huge different with me, they wrote essay real fast. I felt nervous when I siting nearby them and wrote essay. Peer pressure pushed me cannot thinking about essay. I don’t like writing essay in the public place or people look at me. I always wrote out class in the midnight with coffee. It was real quite and I can focus on the essay. Even I still did the terrible work. The big problem that was writing grammar and mechanics. Because it is my first time to study the official writing class in the America. It was totally different with learned in China. I studied how to write the story. Fast writing and free writing. Even basic writing skills were new for me. I still remember the first essay that I wrote. The errors were through up whole essay was the comment in my final draft...
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...has had its ups and downs. I've been able to write papers but I've always needed a little bit of help to complete them. My mom has always been there when I am having problems writing papers. There have been times where I am amazing at them and knock them out like nothing. These are papers are usually short stories or something I can relate to. Then theres times where nothing comes to me and it seems like it takes forever to write them. When writing the papers one of the difficulties came from what I was writing about. In high school papers stressed me out because I knew I was going to have trouble with them. When I had to write my paper for chemistry, I worried about the length, how many citation, and how to cite it. I ask myself how does confidence impact my ability to write? On the one hand the papers I have the most confidence writing and I favor the most are ones where we have to tell a made up story or about a life event. I can write these very easily because I can remember the event very vividly or can make up a story with lots of detail. With event stories I usually just remember then write and occasionally go back to reread and fill some parts with more detail. In high school one of the first papers I had to write in my English class about a life event that changed your life. I thought to myself this is really easy to write about. I had an idea and there was no length on the paper so I didn't have to worry about how long it was. I was ready for this paper. I had confidence...
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...portfolio When I signed up for this class in the summer I was unsure what exactly this class included. I was not very confident in myself as a writer because I had never been challenged. I also didn’t know of MLA, colloquialism, or any of the rules. As we continued to write more essays and learning new concepts, I felt like i was improving. Writing has never came easy for me though. I tend to get off track and write things that are irrelevant to the subject. So, taking this class has helped me greatly. Overall, I feel like I’m improving but I still don’t feel like a strong writer, or anywhere close to a college level writer. As we continued to write about different things, I learned a lot about myself as a college...
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...At this point in my life I find myself in an interesting predicament regarding my attitudes toward reading and writing; more so towards reading. Years ago I used to love reading books for pleasure but nowadays I find myself reading things that little to no effort to digest. This includes the very basic posts on facebook expressing one’s opinion on something or articles and threads on reddit discussing topics I find intriguing. Perhaps it’s the severe senioritis that has overcome me as I enter my last semester at Chapman University. As I’ve gotten lazier I can see it start to reflect in my everyday life. Deep down I still love to read but I rarely find myself getting truly invested into the action unless it relates to something I am very passionate about. My passion for reading began back as second and third grader in Elementary school. One thing I remember is I always got excited when the teachers would pass out the booklets advertising all the scholastic books you could choose from for that month. I would be very meticulous in my process of picking books based on the pictures and description as I only wanted to get ones I thought were best. There was no better feeling walking into class and seeing the piles of books at the front of the room. I would sometimes sneak a peek to see which kid had the biggest stack for that month. Once I got my books I would treat the books with the utmost care, as if they were precious treasure. And to me that’s really what they were, my...
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...brief answer, I’d say that an author is a well-known writer or a person who writes big pieces of writing. I’ve never given it much thought before and I don’t think I’ll ever exactly know unless I do some research. Some could say that the mere act of writing is what makes a person an author. If I am to be considered an author for the fact that I have written a few essays, then that’s great but I really don’t feel like I should be given that title. In my own standards and from what I’ve been reflecting upon, authors are people who are known for their writing and whose writing is aimed to be read by many. Hence, I do not consider myself an author for the reason that my writing does not seem at the level of an author and I don’t write for other people to read....
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...Am I making myself clear? Mencap’s guidelines for accessible writing Thank you for your interest in ‘Am I making myself clear’. I hope you find these guidelines helpful. Why you should think about accessible information There are nearly 1.5 million people with learning disabilities living in the UK. Changes in policy and legislation, and a change in attitudes, mean these people no longer live in long-stay hospitals and other institutions. They are part of the community, needing information and services. Requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA) makes it unlawful for service providers to discriminate against disabled people. It applies to nearly all service providers, including local councils, Government departments, charities, hotels and restaurants, shops and leisure facilities, accountants and solicitors, churches, courts, hospitals and clinics. How can Mencap help? Mencap is the UK’s leading organisation working with people with a learning disability. The Mencap Accessibity Unit has expertise in breaking down information into understandable concepts and language. We can provide: • general advice on accessibity for people with a learning disability • editing and writing of accessible material • focus groups where people with a learning disability can provide detailed feedback on your documents or your services. How to contact the Accessibility Unit # 020 7696 6965 or 020 7696 5551 " Email accessibility@mencap.org...
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...Assignment 1.1 Experiences as a Writer Emily Ramage ENG090 Writing Fundamentals Writing for me would be labeled as difficult. Considering that I haven’t had to write an actual paper since grade school, writing is not a part of my everyday life. Being a professional cosmetologist I’m not given the opportunity to write while on the job. The most I write at work would be the clients name and there service requested. I don’t have to write notes there; all my focus is on hair. With the way technology is today, most of my “personal” writing is done through text. I wasn’t the type of person that kept a journal. I found myself being able to vent more when it’s just freelance. With the iPhone the note pad is my best friend. Not checking for spelling or grammatical error would be the type of writing that I’m used to. Making sure every T is crossed and every I is dotted is something that never crosses my mind while freelancing. Being a college student, I try to write as much as possible. I now keep a notepad in my purse and jot down anything that comes to mind. I still find that the most writing that I do outside of my assignments is a grocery list. Nothing has really changed as far as me being a writer. I write because I have to not because I want to. Not writing for a long time truly shows my roughness. Starting this paper would be classified as my bad experience as a writer. I wasn’t clear on where to start because I don’t write often. I tried to jot down my thoughts...
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...This goes for writing as well. Most of us are not born great writers. It takes failure, after failure, after failure and a few triumphs along the way. It takes analyzing piece after another in order to find your strengths and weaknesses in writing. These things are essential in order to know who you are as a writer. As of right now I am not a very big fan of writing, especially compared to the writer that I used to be. I let my writing ability dwindle. This partly is due to the death that recently occurred in my family. My Uncle Primo, a great influence on my writing, took his life a month and a half ago. This loss took away my passion for writing. Often times I would text my uncle and share my pieces, anxious about the feedback I waited to come. The fact that I couldn’t hear his input on the thoughts I jotted down killed me softly, and I just have not had the desire to write the way I used to ever since. Writing is something that always interested me, even as a child. Ever since I was a little kid, I was apparently very skilled in telling the most outrageous fibs. I guess because of my vivid imagination, my dad told me I would be a great writer one day. He probably said it to be funny, but as a little kid any words from my parents were equivalent to the Bill of Rights in my eyes. In the past I often found myself writing frequently.Whether it be on a rainy day or a day full of sunshine accompanied by beautiful breeze, I was somewhere in the background writing. I often wrote...
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...struggled and experienced some sort of hardship when having to write. The content hardly ever played a role; I faced obstacles no matter the topic or form of paper I had to write. Certain factors were able to better assist me when writing, however nothing was ever enough to perfect my writing, or at least, diminish the hardships I experienced. Throughout this first semester of literature I have, of course, experienced problems with my writing, however I have learned to identify my own mistakes and am beginning to better comprehend how to fix these mistakes. During the beginning of this past Fall’s semester, I had lost my confidence in my writing abilities. With my loss of confidence as a writer, came a strong desire to never write again. Still, the consequences of my loss of confidence further extended into my life and effected my overall perception of all things literary. I had no desire to read, and if I somehow felt forced to read, I would pay hardly any attention to the content. This influenced my writing in negative ways. However, I was still unable to recognize or identify the exact mistakes or flaws within my writing. Initially I had sought out the mistakes, but eventually lost hope and felt that there was no way to correct my writing. My horrendous writing skills were set in stone…or at least I believed so at the time. It was not up until I received the shameful grade of a “D+” on my paper, “Following Faith”, that I could fully identify my problems as a writer. I had not been...
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...Enrolling in school was one of the hardest decisions I [Avoid use of the first person (I, me, my) in academic writing unless writing about a personal experience. First person use may be allowed by the instructor. ] have ever made; the fear of going back to school after twenty [Express numbers higher than nine in digits (when not the first word in the sentence)] years was overwhelming. The first step of the process was, finding out ["finding out" is a "phrasal verb," two words that together mean something different from their individual meanings--looking up each word in the dictionary would not produce the meaning, which could cause misinterpretation in an international business communication. Use other words, like "discover" or simply "found"] if I have enough time to go back to school? [Writing suggestion: Unless in a quote or a title, avoid rhetorical questions in academic writing. A good idea is to provide answers, not questions] Working 40 hours a week and then [consider removing "then"] adding schoolwork on top of that, [Remove comma (unless it introduces a nonrestrictive phrase)] was a hard decision to make. After talking with the placement counselor I found that part of the process was easy. The next step was also easy, paying for it. I used the post 911 GI bill to pay for my tuition. [What point are you making in this paragraph? Try including a topic sentence.] Once the payment and time were not an issue, the feeling that I would not do well academically was...
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...The way in which we view writing and literacy influences the way we view our own writer identities (Cremin and Baker, 2010). Writer identities are composed and stem from a variety of elements relating to previous schooling experience, our upbringings, beliefs, the people we surround ourselves with and our perceptions of writing (Cremin and Baker, 2010). Before enrolling into this unit I, like many other pre-service teachers viewed myself as a reader more than a writer (Gardner, 2018). Being a writer to me focussed hugely on people who produced and created writing as their paid job such as authors or journalists. Fresh out of high school having done many exams and constantly being exposed to writing online and through social media, I still never viewed myself as a writer....
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...I’m going to be honest, I do not enjoy writing. I find it tiring, frustrating and immensely difficult. I struggle with fully conveying what I am trying to say, and find all the little rules infuriating. I get why this class is important though. As someone who struggles with writing, it is important that I develop the skills to properly make an argument, research, or form a proper paragraph. And I legitimately think this class has taught me a number of valuable lessons when it comes to writing. The first thing is clarity. Before this class, I had the bad habit of artificially extending my essays by using fancy-sounding convoluted language. This worked in high school, I was able to get away with this method in order to artificially extend the length of my paper and make myself seem more intelligent than I actually was. When I started this class, I quickly learned that doing that was a bad idea. Over the course of the quarter, I have tried to be much more concise and to the point with my writing. This can be seen especially well in my research essay, where I try to avoid unnecessarily repeating myself and get right to the point after bringing in data. While I still do fluff out my...
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...time and stress. Those two words are two very crucial and important words. In order for me to conduct myself as a student, I must take and learn responsibility as a student. It is up to me to get my work assignments, study, and complete my submission due dates for all of my work. I will have a calendar labeled with important dates when my work is due. It’s important to me that I have a plan and sick by it closely as I can. I cannot allow the outside world known as “Stress” take any part of my plan for success. I have to be able to lay aside the things in the world that may stress me out while I’m a student in college. The effects of stress while show up in my courses by decreasing my grades. This will not be acceptable for a student who is on the road for academic and career success. However, I am glad to know that there are student support services. I can go to The University Life Resource Center and get help in counseling if I have any disturbing concern that I may not be able to handle on my own. They offer a variety of services to help me on my way such as career coaching and life coaching. This is good for me in case I may seem to get a little confused or off track on this journey. I plan to stay highly motivated while I am achieving my degree by remembering the number one fact “why am I here”? I will post different inspirational quotes around my home to help me push myself. I will stay...
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...helps me share my health and physical education are some of the topics that I’ve developed a passion for through running, giving me an audience and purpose for assignments I write. Helping others understand more about the community allows me to direct my writing to a specific audience, while also making it understandable for individuals who are inexperienced in the community. The community offers a wide variety of information, allowing you to find the topics that you’re passionate about. The running community has impacted the way I approach my writing and influences the content of my writing. When I am tasked with a writing assignment, I find myself going back to the same things I tell myself when I am struggling on a run “even if you’re not feeling 100%, give your 100%”. Whether I am motivated towards completing an assignment or not, I still put forth my best possible work because of the ethics that I’ve developed as a member of the running community. Being a part of this community has developed my values and principles to always do my best, no matter how hard the task is, because if I find myself lacking in my work, I feel as if I cheated myself. Discourse communities influence an individual’s style and approach to writing. While they may seem insignificant on...
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