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Personal Writing Skills Evaluation Many people in the world are trying very hard to learn English language. It is not a surprise that English is also a world language which most countries in the world can use as a universal language and as a language to conduct business or education. Numerous scientific researches, publications, and origins of internet are all in English hence it is often necessary language to know in order to keep up in the modern world. I’m personally very proud of being able to speak and read English fluently however writing skills were in much needed improvements until this last quarter in the university.
Taking discursive writing course in English helped me learn to write proficiently through two out-of-class essays and several journal assignments. During my last quarter I’ve realized that academic writing in English and expressing thoughts on paper is more challenging than it looks so learning proper techniques is crucial in succeeding in both personal and business communication environment. For my portfolio I have included out-of-class essay 3 and I have chosen an out-of-class essay 1. Essay 3, a journal critique paper addressed summarizing a text, evaluating a text, and analyzing a text objectives.
Essay 1, an argument synthesis essay, addressed developing a paragraph with support, formulating an argument, and using persuasive argument. By writing these papers I have learned how to summarize and evaluate text by choosing only the main ideas and using my own words to describe main points. Also, writing an argument synthesis essay taught me how to formulate an argument through prewriting using listing method. Furthermore in the same essay I have used a persuasive argument to bring readers on my side and by developing a paragraph with support was able to formulate an informative argument.
I have chosen to include essay 1 because it is better than essay 2 due to learning many points through teachers comments on formatting, capitalizing of nouns in the title, using 1st or 3rd persons or specific noun, and developing strategies. Our first out-of-class essay assignment was about creating an argument. Writing a first essay involved learning a proper way of brainstorming ideas by using listing to organize pros and cons, this also helped with choosing a side, and creating thesis statement to answer to “so what? In class discussion was very helpful in discovering how to pre-write and listing method was especially useful for my argument essay to generalize ideas. a. Supporting personal claim with evidence and examples b. I’ve personally picked up from teachers comments to use 1st or 3rd person or a specific noun II Through various assignments such as outlining, in class paragraph development exercise, and rough draft review I’ve learned multi-step approach to writing an essay. a. How to start with writing an outline b. Develop paragraph using levels of analysis . Expand rough draft III Another out-of-class essay was focusing on critical rhetoric analysis of an article. a. Summarizing a text b. Evaluating an article Journal assignments presented an opportunity to self-evaluate and highlight some of the areas to focus on. After rereading the beginning of the class evaluation I can say with confidence that my writing became more developed and flows smoothly. My strengths have expanded and now include ability to write strong thesis by answering question “so what? ” and by finding a higher category.
Weaknesses at the beginning of writing stage have diminished with learning how to pre-write using free-writing and use of webbing or clustering methods. Each type of assignment was worthwhile because it focused on different area of proficiency. Overall, journals were great quick assignments which allowed for brainstorming ideas and weigh-up myself on paper. Essays allowed for a larger work load to be separated into smaller stages. This separation created learning process of main objectives such as avoidance of plagiarism and documentations as well as organization and structuring such as outlining and drafting.