Rough Draft Essay

Throughout the progression of this course I learned countless things concerning my writing. {Simkin, M. G., Crews, J. M., & Groves, M. J. (2012). While it’s there’s a many amounts of things ‘ve learned throughout the course, there are several things I‘ve learned which include the step by step process, including the correct usage of grammar and properly proofreading my work before I turn it in. I found out i had a major problem with my punctuation usage and insufficient when it came my periods and commas. I’ve invested some time writing through grammarly and other helpful sites to improve my writing skills. I appreciate the assistance and help I received from Mrs. C

As a writer it is important to find new ways to improve, I realized in to this class just how weak my skills in punctuation are. After each paper I review comma and semicolon rules, yet I still struggle with these rules. They are simple rules, but when it comes to applying them I draw a blank. This is one skill that will take some extra work on my part. Even in this assignment I see mistakes that I do not know how to fix. However, this class has inspired me to continue to try and fix the punctuation errors so that my

After this semester of English 102, at Bristol Community College I feel that I have gained the skill to articulate what I want to convey to the reader in many ways. I don’t just look at grammatical error, but instead I look for ways to make my sentences more effective and concise. Nevertheless, I hope that this strategy will continue to help me improve my writing even further on in the future.

The checklist titled “Checklist for Revising and Editing”, in The Little Seagull Handbook, provided eight great tips for revision of a paper. The tips ranged from appealing to a specific audience to punctuation errors. The biggest issues I have with writing are sentence structure and punctuation and mechanics.

In the introduction to my first essay the 3rd sentence contains an easily remediable comma splice: “Not me, I live for this.” Later in the same paragraph I made the same mistake with “My operators think they are the ones who drive me into these situations – they’re wrong, I am the one who drags them into the belly of the beast.” Prior to ENC1101, I would never consider the preceding sentence wrong. After learning about the proper usage of commas and semicolons, I realized I have been creating comma splices all my life. Learning what independent clauses were and how to properly punctuate them has given my writing a greater sense of credibility. Replacing the comma with a semicolon, the punctuation used to separate 2 independent clauses, fixes them. Another error exposed during this course was my improper use of word forms. An example is shown here from my second essay “Seeing their demeanor switch from animosity to appreciative made me feel rewarded for my efforts”. Reading that sentence in my mine seems fine, but on closer inspection the words “animosity” and “appreciative” are not in same form. This course (specifically the SmartThinking program) has shown me that making word forms agree leads to more fluid writing. Correcting these errors leads to more mature writing and will make future professors respect my writing

The writing handbook I use is The Little Seagull Handbook. The specific area I see myself making the most mistakes with punctuation is comma splices. Sometimes I place commas in sentences where I think they are supposed to be, but really they are not. I think punctuation is probably the most common mistake I make when writing a paper. I changed my second goal to providing more details and examples in my writing. I thought I expanded pretty well on important specifics in my papers, but I noticed there are still some parts where I do not provide sufficient detailed information. An example of this would be not providing enough details on my goals I make; I am striving to meet this goal by the end of the course. The way I see myself determining

I use to enjoy reading and writing. The joy of going to the bookstore and picking out a great book excited me. I would curl up in my bed and image the world around me as if I was in the book myself. Everything changed during my four high school years.

When I stop to think about the memory’s that I have made during my first semester of college; there are both good and bad pieces or times that present themselves. Often with many things there are gray areas, and writing would fall in there for me. I fortunately understand now that I have times where I can over look many of my writing flaws. Such as sentence structure! This by far was my biggest problem in this class, and I fully understand why. Personally I have times that will type up a paragraph and never notice the mistake. That is until someone points it out to me. It’s almost like my brain knows that something is wrong with it, but for some unknown reason it won’t register when I’m revising my paper. So as a writer I have realized that I need to take advantage of people around me and get their feedback on my essay’s; because

Once again, I had made mistakes I hadn’t even noticed before. When my paper went through peer review, and I received feedback, I was told something I had thought I had already done. I was told, “Commas need added in a few spots like after 'In fact, and Still,” (Anonymous). Surely when I went back to the essay there were not commas in some important spots, for example, “In fact about a third of students who take out student loans never even graduate and receive their diploma” (Straley 3). Having a peer read your essay, can really help you find your grammatical errors. When we read our own paper, we often read it as if the punctuation is there, even if it is not. When someone else reads it though, they can easily identify these mistakes, especially when it is their first time reading your

It was the bottom of the sixth inning of a USSA sponsored tournament and I was hitting fourth that inning, cleanup. Jake, our second baseman and the literalist on my team, was hitting first, Jake tries to bunt and misses. “C’mon Jake, get the barrel on the ball,” Said my first base coach Matt Fitzmorris, who played in the majors, “Let’s go!”

My love for writing isn’t as strong as my love for reading. I’ve always enjoyed the idea of expressing my thoughts in words, but I always struggle with things such as punctuation, spelling, grammar, and word choice. I think I’m better at writing personal narratives, and persuasive essays, but I‘m always unsure of where to put my commas. Writing has always given me the pleasure of challenging me, and I hope that this year I would become a better

An aspect that I often struggle with is proper punctuation. Truthfully, I do not know how to correctly use punctuation. When writing, I place punctuation by mimicking authors’ formats or by placing them where it feels right. This is present in all of my writing, but I am attempting to improve. Punctuation also plays a part in another weakness of mine, one that is most likely present within this essay. Since middle school, it was engrained in my mind that a good essay is a long essay, so I have a tendency for wordiness. To elongate an essay, I tend to add needless words and sentences. For example, in the rough draft of the Whole Process Essay, I added several unrelated occurrences to elongate the paragraphs. Although my essays were long and wordy, the professor commented on vagueness and unclearness within the whole process and practice essay. Sometimes, I disregard the fact that the reader might not know what it is I am writing about or the sentence makes perfect sense to me. The latter is the most common, I quickly read the sentence and it appears fine to me. Within the Whole Process Essay, another weakness was brought to my attention. I lack structure, a key element in effective writing. Within the same essay and a few others, I simply added what felt right, sometimes the result would be acceptable but in other instances, it was a long, jumbled mess.

To help me improve on my punctuation I will read Punctuation and Mechanics chapter in A Writer’s Reference. By reading that chapter I think I will learn about coordinating conjunctions and different ways to users use commas and when to use them. I hope to gain more skills that will help me improve as a writer while I write my Hegemonic essay and by using resources that are provided at the TLC and in A Writer's Reference book I believe will help me tremendously in my writing journey.

Punctuation is used to convey deeper meaning in writing. Commas are one of the most frequently misused punctuation marks. Generally, amateur authors do not comprehend the rules of comma placement. Many will use commas too often or too little. When commas are used correctly, they help the reader better understand the passage by forcing them to mentally break it into smaller parts. Conversely, dashes are designed to speed the reader’s thoughts by throwing the thought forward. Similar to the comma, semicolons can improve an essay, but are easy to misunderstand. Semicolons separate a complete sentence into two closely related parts, with a whole sentence on either side. Colons, when used correctly, will show information as a direct result of the

Not knowing the volume of grammatical mistakes made until you have reviewed or have your work edited or reviewed by another the reader reviewing Grammar, spelling and punctuation marks. Upon, completing writing lessons in class this semester, I must understand and continue on knowing how to start a sentence and end with a complete sentence. The sentence structure is very important to focus and pay attention to the spelling of misspelled words to know when to use correct and when not to use incorrect punctuation marks. I must be careful and remember to cite all reliable resources all information obtained and found, to know if I didn’t write it, I must cite it. I must know if and when not to use capital letters when writing a sentence, using words that when someone other than myself is reading my writing assuring they understands what they are reading or are able to understand what I am trying to say.