Reflection On My Writing Patterns Of Error

One disadvantage of high school was that our teachers focused very little time on grammar; therefore, I never gained a good foundation in correct grammar. Over the years this has hurt me in my writing because proper grammar is crucial in writing. By going to the learning center and receiving help from Professor Cox I was able to recognize repeated grammar mistakes within my papers. One very common mistake I made throughout all my papers was not inserting a comma after a subordinating clause at the beginning of a sentence. I noticed that I had a tendency to always start sentences with subordinating clauses, but would never put in a comma afterwards. Once I recognized this mistake and learned the correct way to fix it I started paying close attention to this grammatical error, making sure I did not make it again. Therefore, towards the middle to end of the semester I no longer made these errors in my papers. A good example of this correct grammar technique can be found in paper number four numerous times, “When applying to PA school, people need to beware of the programs pre-requisites because they vary between programs.” The comma between “school” and “people” is the correct use of a comma after a subordinating clause. Another grammar mistake I continuously made was putting a comma in front of the words “therefore” and “however” when a semicolon was needed. I was taught in high school, that you always put a set of commas around

A few areas that the writing specialist pointed out in which I need to review and refresh. 1. Fully

These errors have weakened my writing and have drawn away attention from my content. I need to pay close attention in the future to these reoccurring mistakes. I have also learnt in this course that long paragraphs concerning one topic should be reviewed, and I should create a backwards outline so that I am able to break them down into several smaller paragraphs with different focal points. I have learnt how important grammar and organization is in my work and that I should not only pay attention to the content, which I have done previously. Grammar can change the whole meaning and understanding of a piece of writing, now I am well aware of this and hope to improve this throughout the rest of the course.

The improvements that I need to make are simple. Learning how to properly cite a source in an essay and citing it at the end. The right punctuation is something I need to be careful with and I need to work on. I feel that’s what I need to worry about the most. I also often get stuck and thoughts are often blank. I hate when I write and I lose my thoughts and become stuck.

This paper will talk about the presidential primaries in the United States of America. It will explain what a primary election is, and where it comes from historically, also how it fits into today’s society. Another topic it will cover is how the primary process has played out so far this year, how some of the contenders are currently faring in the race for presidency. It will also cover the strong suits of the primaries and some of the major flaws of the primaries. The last topic this paper will cover is whether or not the people of the United States should understand and care about the presidential Primaries.

The final weeks of my first semester in college are coming to an end. My Columbus State english class has written a total of three projects, and a total of four papers. There are a lot of grammatical issues that, at the beginning of the year, I had issues on. However, I have improved on these errors drastically, and have become a better writer because of it. Even though I am still working on many aspects of my writing, I do believe that I have become a better writer. I believe that my biggest issues while writing are run on sentences, making a strong thesis statement, and having quotes stand alone at the beginning of a paragraph.

In the beginning of the semester, everyone was write down two goals that would be accomplished in the semester. Experience in writing papers showed me that I was weak in writing any type of papers. However, I was determined to stop repeating idea by rewording as well as writing information that is unnecessary. Also, I knew I had to improve on writing essays with no to very few mistakes, whether it is structurally or punctually. I am pleased with discontinuing any repetitions while writing, but am not so pleased about structuring and punctuating my sentences.

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

The first major error, I made would probably be putting contractions in my sentences. Contractions like: I’ve, you’ve and it’s are the ones that occur most. I did not put contractions like: didn’t, wouldn’t, or can’t. Another major error, I have made in my papers is extra lines. I am not sure how I got extra lines, but I did and I will (try) not to make that mistake again. The last major error I made was asking questions. I always answered the questions, but I still asked them and that is not allowed.

My first draft of our assignment, Essay One: Textual Analysis of a New Mexican Mural, was interesting. I don’t particularly see things that are not obvious. It pushed me to look at something and find a deeper meaning. That was challenging for me. After reading my first draft of that assignment, I see I was not very organized. My thesis was not very strong or clear. I repeated myself several times within the body when using logos. I didn’t try to relate my audience using ethos at all, and tried to convince my audience using pathos a bit but didn’t make strong arguments to support my claims.

It feels like every day, countless news stations, websites, and social media users break the tragic story of yet another mass shooting in the US, a fact that is shared by almost no other developed countries. Clearly there is something anomalous about the U.S., why else would the U.S. be the only country where this regularly happens? The answer lies in one key difference between the United States and other developed countries, its policies on gun control and ownership. The 2nd amendment to the United States Constitution states, essentially, that every US citizen has the right to own guns, and that the United States Government may not infringe upon those rights. The truth of the matter is that controlling American Citizen’s access to firearms is the only solution to the undeniable issue of mass shootings and gun related homicides, a fact that is backed up by the example of several other developed countries, in which guns are controlled and incidents of gun homicide and mass murder are far less common than they are in America. Controlling guns in America is a task that has been halted numerous times by the antiquated constitutional stance on American armament, and is the only sensible option for lessening the atrocious tragedies that are seen so often on U.S. soil.

It is often said that children are our future and there certainly seems to be few statements that would ring more true. After all, children literally are the legacy that will grow up to carry on society, and their ability to thrive as successful adults rests largely upon the impact that they receive during their childhood. Effective parenting is an incredibly important aspect of a successful society, but it is also a difficult objective to achieve. According to the American Humane Association (2007), 63 percent of children experienced at least one situation of neglect in 2005 while 17 percent experienced physical abuse and 7 percent emotional abuse. Based on these unexpectedly high numbers, there appears to be a significant need in communities around the country for greater efforts to influence positive parenting strategies and provide parents with opportunities for education, stress relief, and added resources. Additionally, Robert Putman (2000) described a trend of declining social participation in a wide area of American life including organizations that help enforce positive social norms for children. Due to this trend, the parent-child relationship within society is perhaps more important than ever before. Because of these realities, the project being proposed in this paper is a parenting resource program for a county.

Having your work proofread is not a foolproof way of ensuring that your CV, cover letter or written project is perfect. The proofreader needs to fully understand your entire work, and he or she needs to understand it in context. It is up to you to go through your text and pull out any mistakes. Sadly, you are not a professional proofreader or editor, so there are probably quite a few potential mistakes that you are unaware of. Here are ten unexpected writing mistakes that you may have missed.

As a writer there are many elements of writing that I struggle with, especially when composing an essay. When writing an essay, there are usually many skills that need to be used in order to be successful with the writing assignment. Many times in writing I struggle with explaining and fully developing the supporting details and ideas in my essay. I would also like to improve on incorporating clear topic sentences and concluding sentences, connecting my paragraphs ideas back to my thesis. Lastly, improvement can be made in my writing by avoiding awkward or wordy sentences. Writers face numerous challenges in their writing but strive to overcome or improve these challenges with each piece they write.

My writing skills which I have worked on over the few months I have been in English 102 have changed quite a bit in my opinion. There are many things which I have improved upon that were amongst my weaker writing skills when the year began. On the opposite side of that point, there are also many things which I still need to improve upon if I want to truly elevate my writing to a level that I will be confident in. Finally, I have gained new skills outside of writing from this class, particularly the activities which we did in class at various points throughout the year. These things all cumulate together to give me an appreciation of English courses which I did not previously have.