Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Dear SEO

Throughout the semester my writing has both improved and changed. I have never been a poor writer, but there were many things that I was unaware of before I entered this course. Some of these things were minor mistakes that I have merely been overlooking in my past writing courses; other mistakes were major ones that determined not only the organization of my papers, but also the clarity of them. Fixing these mistakes has not been easy and I find myself repeating them sometimes. This is not because I do not care to fix them, but simply because I have made a bad habit out of them. In my first essay, written on my connection with a childhood toy, the baby doll, I had a lot of trouble using specific evidence to back up my opinions and my perspective on things. At the end of one of my paragraphs I wrote, “Taking care of the baby doll was a major chore and a lot to handle”. Afterwards I did not go into details as to how taking care of this toy I played with was a chore or what made it hard to handle. Yet when it came to my second essay which described an advertisement, I did much better. I used specific examples and details from the ad that helped to support the points that I made throughout the essay. During the course I also learned how to fix my technical mistakes. Often times I used passive voice instead of active voice. For example, in my third essay which compared and contrasted the two television shows Grey’s Anatomy and House, I wrote “Every episode is revolved around one particular medical case” instead of saying, “every episode revolves around one particular medical case”. When I did my revision I made sure to fix this mistake and also look for the same error in other papers. In this same essay I also made the mistake of using second person instead of saying “the viewer”. I realized that I made fewer of these errors in this third essay than the first two, yet I was still having some trouble with them. Because of that I paid closer attention to this mistake for the fourth essay and did my best to fix the problem. This third essay was also the one that I did my major revision on. The first draft that I handed in was decently written, but it was unorganized and it did not contain enough contextual background information. Because of these errors I received a “C-” as my grade. In order to fix this, I added examples from specific episodes and provided detailed analyses in order to explain them and their relevance to my thesis. Along with the need to add more background information, the peer revision that I was given showed that I also needed to add more transitions in order for it to flow better. I fixed this and also rearranged the paragraphs so that they fit more coherently. It was also suggested that I reinforce my thesis more throughout the paper. To correct this mistake I added more examples and showed why the personal drama with the two shows that I talked about was the main appeal, rather than the medical issues that the show dealt with. Another problem that I realized I kept continuing to make was the irrelevance in some of my paragraphs. This was clear in my first formal essay which talked about a childhood toy. I was writing about how I can now look at the situation I had with the baby doll in a new perspective because I am older, and how I can now handle things more responsibly. I then go on to talk about how I am a cheerleader and being a part of a team has made those responsibilities come out: but there was no direct connection to the point I was trying to make. At the time I thought that it worked well with the essay, but now looking back on it I’m glad that in my later essays I focused more on relevant information instead of ones that do not make sense. As far as major improvements, I have fixed my technical errors the most. Along with now knowing when to use active versus passive, I have fixed other mistakes as well. I no longer use conjunctions. I had a big problem with that because I was so used to writing informally and not having anyone correct me on my mistake. The use of conjugations makes a paper seem less informal so I learned to look for them more carefully when checking over my work. My use of pronouns also improved. In my first formal essay I started a paragraph with “This later on reflected my avoidance and timid reactions to infants”. To start a paragraph that way, using the word “this”, made what I was talking about very unclear to the reader and also made the paper confusing in general. Little mistakes such as these can truly make or break a paper. If I focus on being more specific with my language then the quality of my writing will improve dramatically. Another technicality that I had trouble with were citations, and they were especially a problem when it came to writing the third essay. In this paper I talked about specific examples from different episodes of the shows that my paper was based on. Due to the fact that I am a big fan of these programs, I myself did not need much refreshing when it came to knowing and talking about specific examples. Yet I often forget that I need to write my papers as though the reader has no idea what these shows are about. Therefore I need to cite the sources and go into detailed explanation about the examples I am providing. I have to make the reader feel as though they have been watching the show for years. As a writer I believe one of my strengths is often my grammar. It is very rare for me to have spelling errors and I have been pretty consistent with my correct comma use and semicolon use as well. My main weakness as a writer is the lack of precision in my writing and also my informal language. I have gained a lot more knowledge on how to make my papers more concise. And I also learned that just because you are being concise does not mean that you have to state one thing and move on to another right away. It is okay, and correct, to analyze what you are talking about. The way I used to understand it was that analyzing was simply giving more examples. Although it does include backing up your point with examples, you also need evidence and opinions and references that help support your point. There is a lot more to being a good writer than I once believed. It is difficult to take the criticism and try to fix it and turn it into something positive, but looking back on my revisions it has made my papers much better.

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