Writing has been a vital component of my academic success. During this current term I have experienced writing a narrative and persuasive essay. The past eight weeks, I have learned that writing enhances my communication and thinking skills, in order to give a clear view of my ideas to my readers. Writing is the main foundation upon which my skills, my knowledge, and my brainpower is measured academically and professionally. My writing process has been refined throughout this course specifically¬—choosing my topics carefully, properly researching my topics, outlining my essays for better organization, and editing my essays using different sources.
The writing process has many intricate steps. Looking back at my narrative and persuasive essays, I found it difficult to select a topic. As I was brainstorming, I found myself sifting through several ideas and lacked the organizational skills to make a decision. Using a visual organizer helps categorize my ideas adequately. I used a concept map to clarify the correlation between each topic choice. The visual organizer assisted in narrowing down my main topic and eventually a thesis statement. The feedback I received for my narrative essay was that my thesis statement was not transparent. I wrote, “The day I was laid off from my comfy job at IBM, I had to construct a tough decision that not only affected me, but my entire household.” My thesis did not clearly state the decision I made and questioned later. I changed the thesis statement to, “Reaching the decision to not go back to the company I enjoyed working for and setting my sites on a new career path was extremely difficult.” This thesis statement worked better for me because I stated the decision I made and expressed that I had an issue making the decision. Researching the topic for my persuasive essay was effortless. I used the Shapiro Library and decided to only use up to six sources. In past discussions of this course, I have stated that sometimes I include too much information in my writing. I realized that keeping my sources to a minimum will help me minimize the amount of unnecessary information in my essays. In addition to the difficulty settling on a topic for the persuasive and narrative essays; I found it difficult to outline my persuasive essay more than my narrative essay. …show more content…
Outlining my essays prevents me from getting perplexed. The feedback I received for my persuasive essay was to focus on the transitioning of my paragraphs and organization so I could give a clear train of thought to my readers. Even though the main idea was clear in my outline, the placement of my paragraphs were disorganized. I began reading my work out loud in order to figure out what type of transitional phrases and conjunctive adverbs to use. I also realized I did not take advantage of extending the time spent on my outline. I need to spend more time constructing my outlines before I begin writing. Outlining an essay assists in determining when to discuss the key points to support the main idea. Outlining an essay keeps the writer on topic and structures the flow of the essay to avoid confusing the reader. Subsequently, I begin the process of drafting by writing one section at a time. I incorporate my outline into separate paragraphs for each section of the paper starting with the introduction, the body, and then the conclusion. Sometimes I write the introduction last depending on the nature of the essay. There are times that I don’t figure out what the thesis statement should be until I get to the conclusion of my paper. The feedback I received on my persuasive paper was to expand on the reasoning behind some of my points made. In the future, I will give reasoning behind certain ideas in order for the reader to have a better understanding. The drafting process helps the writer figure out the exact tone of the essay. Drafting gives the writer the opportunity to put thoughts into complete paragraphs. Identifying the purpose of the essay is the key component to the drafting process. This is the first step to figuring out how to draw the reader into the essay and keep them interested. I also take this time to gather all of my references. In my persuasive paper, I received feedback about using the exact page numbers when including
The writing process has many intricate steps. Looking back at my narrative and persuasive essays, I found it difficult to select a topic. As I was brainstorming, I found myself sifting through several ideas and lacked the organizational skills to make a decision. Using a visual organizer helps categorize my ideas adequately. I used a concept map to clarify the correlation between each topic choice. The visual organizer assisted in narrowing down my main topic and eventually a thesis statement. The feedback I received for my narrative essay was that my thesis statement was not transparent. I wrote, “The day I was laid off from my comfy job at IBM, I had to construct a tough decision that not only affected me, but my entire household.” My thesis did not clearly state the decision I made and questioned later. I changed the thesis statement to, “Reaching the decision to not go back to the company I enjoyed working for and setting my sites on a new career path was extremely difficult.” This thesis statement worked better for me because I stated the decision I made and expressed that I had an issue making the decision. Researching the topic for my persuasive essay was effortless. I used the Shapiro Library and decided to only use up to six sources. In past discussions of this course, I have stated that sometimes I include too much information in my writing. I realized that keeping my sources to a minimum will help me minimize the amount of unnecessary information in my essays. In addition to the difficulty settling on a topic for the persuasive and narrative essays; I found it difficult to outline my persuasive essay more than my narrative essay. …show more content…
Outlining my essays prevents me from getting perplexed. The feedback I received for my persuasive essay was to focus on the transitioning of my paragraphs and organization so I could give a clear train of thought to my readers. Even though the main idea was clear in my outline, the placement of my paragraphs were disorganized. I began reading my work out loud in order to figure out what type of transitional phrases and conjunctive adverbs to use. I also realized I did not take advantage of extending the time spent on my outline. I need to spend more time constructing my outlines before I begin writing. Outlining an essay assists in determining when to discuss the key points to support the main idea. Outlining an essay keeps the writer on topic and structures the flow of the essay to avoid confusing the reader. Subsequently, I begin the process of drafting by writing one section at a time. I incorporate my outline into separate paragraphs for each section of the paper starting with the introduction, the body, and then the conclusion. Sometimes I write the introduction last depending on the nature of the essay. There are times that I don’t figure out what the thesis statement should be until I get to the conclusion of my paper. The feedback I received on my persuasive paper was to expand on the reasoning behind some of my points made. In the future, I will give reasoning behind certain ideas in order for the reader to have a better understanding. The drafting process helps the writer figure out the exact tone of the essay. Drafting gives the writer the opportunity to put thoughts into complete paragraphs. Identifying the purpose of the essay is the key component to the drafting process. This is the first step to figuring out how to draw the reader into the essay and keep them interested. I also take this time to gather all of my references. In my persuasive paper, I received feedback about using the exact page numbers when including