Me, A Writer?

Attitude: I'm enthusiastic and positive to take this course because of my passion and enthusiasm for English and writing. I guess because of the passion I have for English, this course is going to be interesting because I like English. It gives me the ability to share my thoughts and emotions in a manner that I can express to everyone. I feel that while I enjoy writing, I have a lot to think about getting ranked. I feel like I can be a perfectionist sometimes, and I want my writing to be flawless even in a rough draft. With this attitude, I think that it will be a lot harder for me to complete assignments for this class because I will stress out more about getting it perfect, rather than completing the tasks and learning from my mistakes. Because of this, I might not enjoy the class as much as I have in the past.

Inventory: Through my inventory, I did not find out anything new about myself as a learner. Through the inventory, I have learned that I am an independent, creative, verbal, emotional and abstract learner. It has been interesting to see that my learning styles have stayed the same over the many years of school, and over the years I have developed many different tricks to help me using my learning styles.

What I want to give emphasis on my writing is the revision bit of it. I aim at writing and presenting a final document with no or minimal grammatical or lexical issues that may compromise the quality and content of my writing. In many cases, I have been over-revising my work to the extent of losing the meaning of my work. In addition, I usually end up with underlined sentences meaning the sentences are not making sense or are grammatically incorrect. The starting point is to write complete sentences in a careful manner which will then mean that I will do minimal revisions.

March 17th, 2017— ENTRY 2: Correctness in writing

Correctness: Correctness plays a significant role in connecting the writer and the reader.A well-written article that does not have errors and flows smoothly will enhance comprehension and motivate the reader to read more. This is because the writer will not struggle to derive the meaning of what has been written. Consequently, if the writing is full of errors, the reader will focus on the writing and miss the point which is being expressed by the writer.

What I believe in and has all along been my strength is the ability to connect evidence to my arguments to back up my claims. Though I have in most cases found substantial evidence to support my case, I, however, need to work on my correctness in writing.

March 18th, 2017 — ENTRY 3: Prewriting and Thesis Statement

Brainstorming:

Facebook

Skype

Twitter

Instagram

Goodreads

Pinterest

Youtube

Foursquare

Reddit

Google+

Respond:

Media sharing sites: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat

Internet-based sites: Google+, Goodreads,

Bookmarking sites: Tumblr, Pinterest

News media sites: Reddit

Live chatting/interaction sites: Skype

Thesis: Some social media users are misusing the sites thus harming others

Reflect: With my brainstorming, I established that social media has a core role in our day-to-day culture. While some use social media responsibly and innocently, others take this as an advantage to harm others. The wrong users engage in cyberbullying, or predating ultimately hurting innocent users. Addiction has also been reported on internet users. Some hide behind the screens to lie to others for their selfish advantage ending up harming others.

March 19h, 2017 — ENTRY 4: Organizing and Drafting

Organize/Outline:

Reflect: Being a visual learner, I find this graphical organizer helpful. It is of essence in organizing and arranging my paragraphs and writing in a coherent manner owing to the fact that I like being organized. My points are also arranged from the least to the most important. Whereas some are experts in topics such as predating and cyber bullying, I feel the topic of morality in social media has been overlooked. I believe readers will be hooked by this topic to read my paper. I opine that organizing my points from the least important to the most important topics will make my readers lose interest in the topic prompting their quit.

March 20, 2017 — ENTRY 5: Revising

Analyzing:

Purpose and audience- My essay is purposed for those individuals with the likelihood of using electronics to send correspondences rather than mail. The purpose of the essay to me is a little unclear. I am not sure if the purpose is to state that printed forms of correspondence such as pictures or letters are better than electronic mail. I feel like the purpose could also be saying that older generations like grandparents and parents like written communication as opposed to emails. If it were my paper, I would use the thesis statement “Older generations enjoy receiving letters and pictures in the mail over an email.”

Thesis statement, topic sentences, and paragraphs- I do not believe that there is a clear thesis statement. I would use the thesis statement “Older generations enjoy receiving letters and pictures in the mail over an email.” Using this thesis, I can identify three topic sentences: “A letter sent in the mail can be cherished rather than deleted,” “A letter gives someone a real thing,” and “We live in a physical world, not a digital one.” Using these topic sentences, the author can begin to set up clear paragraphs with topic sentences.

Evidence- I do believe there is lots of evidence in this essay but not all of it supports the author’s main idea of the essay. Some of it is very random such as the part about the post office and does not sound a good evidence for the essay. It does not seem a good evidence for the essay. I would look for a viable topic sentence and highlight the sentence to which it supports. Topic sentence-“A letter sent in the mail can be cherished rather than deleted.” Evidence- “I get to see how my grandchildren handwriting is changing as they grow. A letter is a tangible way to remind someone that they care enough to take the time and effort to communicate with them and them alone.” Topic sentence-“A letter gives someone a real thing.” Evidence-“Some people want to hold something. People’s senses like to be used for touching and smelling- such as smelling a crayoned picture or touching ink and graphite on paper. Not everyone likes to point and click.” The author used a lot of narrative story evidence and descriptive details evidence. The author could have also used comparison and contrast evidence.

Organization- I do not feel like there was much organization to the essay at all. I think part of the disorganization came from all of the evidence that did not have a purpose in the paper and the undefined topic and thesis statements. I would make an outline of my new defined thesis statement and topic sentences with evidence to make the paper more organized. I would use the introduction to write a narrative about a time that the author received a letter in the mail and how it made her feel. Then go into the thesis statement. The conclusion could be a recap of how the author felt upon receiving the letter and suggest that the reader could do the same to make their special loved ones feel the same way the author did.

March 21st, 2017 — ENTRY 6: Evaluation

Prewriting is the idea stage of the writing process. At this stage, you can figure out the intended audience and the style to use in writing and also reflect on the subject’s point of view. The next step in the writing process is generating and supporting a thesis statement. The thesis statement is the lynchpin that cements a piece of writing together. A thesis statement is made based on the information written in the prewrite, and then the author uses the prewriting as evidence to support the thesis.

Collecting evidence is another significant process in writing. It is also the next step in the process. It is important to pick the right kind of evidence for the type of paper. For instance, an informational essay would require a writer to use factual or statistical evidence to back up a claim. Evidence should also be from reliable sources.

Drafting an essay is the next phase in the writing process and involves a paper’s structural organizational aspect of writing. In the drafting stage, a writer will pick the organizational structure for their writing and will make an outline to help guide the writing. Then follows the writing aspect of it Revision follow drafting stage. Revision differs from editing in that it is more of analyzing and ascertaining the adequacy of information and evidence in backing up the thesis. This step also makes sure that the writing flows and all of the evidence support the thesis. Editing encompasses proofreading and editing. This is the phase that entails polishing up the writing and making it presentable for publication.

I strongly believe graphic organizer is helpful and will come in handy as an outline tool. It is more of a visual thing which fits better for me. I think that as well, the more defined idea of revision vs. editing has helped as well. I have always thought that those two things go hand in hand, but I think that by redefining them I understand the difference, and it will be helpful for me to separate them. Before, I used to frown upon prewriting techniques as I considered them a waste of time, but not after attending the English class.