Last semester I failed English 101. The standards I hold myself to have never allowed for failure; to me a C is failure, a B is barely average, and an A is expected. Before last semester I had never even failed an assignment, much less an entire class. There were many contributing factors to my failure, but ultimately I only have myself to blame. My weaknesses as a writer played a significant role during my struggle last semester, including procrastination, organization, and run on sentences. Although I have always had these weaknesses, I have usually received exemplary grades in writing because I have a natural ability for it and a wide-ranging vocabulary. This semester I will focus on how I can overcome my weaknesses, expand my vocabulary,
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Often times when I am writing I will write quickly without revision resulting in a messy paper. Most of my papers resemble brainstorming lists combined with freewriting worked into loose paragraphs. Procrastination contributes considerably to this problem, because I usually will only have a short amount of time once I actually start writing and I’m worried more about getting the ideas down, rather than the organization. However the organization also influences my procrastination, I become overwhelmed because I cannot organize my thoughts and put it off until organization no longer matters. Last semester, my highest graded paper consisted of a very well written introduction and then a sort of paragraph outline with quotes and my ideas concerning the quotes. My professor last semester remarked that the papers I had turned in and the grades I received definitely did not reflect my abilities, and were marked down due to the lack of organization in my work. I know that my content is “A quality”, but I need to improve the structure of my papers to earn the grades I should …show more content…
In most of my writing assignments, this one included, my sentences will go on, and on, and on, and on, and on, due partly to lack of organization and mostly because I try to fit a lot of ideas into one sentence. One of my first college classes was fundamentals of human communication, and on every single one of my returned writing assignments in red letters, typically underlined, was, “Run On Sentences”. I’m assuming this habit began long before that class but I had never been called out on it repeatedly like in that class. At the time I felt as though it wasn’t something that significantly affected my writing. However, I’ve come to realize that sentences that are dragged out affect the fluency of a text and make it difficult to read and it needs to be
Often times when I am writing I will write quickly without revision resulting in a messy paper. Most of my papers resemble brainstorming lists combined with freewriting worked into loose paragraphs. Procrastination contributes considerably to this problem, because I usually will only have a short amount of time once I actually start writing and I’m worried more about getting the ideas down, rather than the organization. However the organization also influences my procrastination, I become overwhelmed because I cannot organize my thoughts and put it off until organization no longer matters. Last semester, my highest graded paper consisted of a very well written introduction and then a sort of paragraph outline with quotes and my ideas concerning the quotes. My professor last semester remarked that the papers I had turned in and the grades I received definitely did not reflect my abilities, and were marked down due to the lack of organization in my work. I know that my content is “A quality”, but I need to improve the structure of my papers to earn the grades I should …show more content…
In most of my writing assignments, this one included, my sentences will go on, and on, and on, and on, and on, due partly to lack of organization and mostly because I try to fit a lot of ideas into one sentence. One of my first college classes was fundamentals of human communication, and on every single one of my returned writing assignments in red letters, typically underlined, was, “Run On Sentences”. I’m assuming this habit began long before that class but I had never been called out on it repeatedly like in that class. At the time I felt as though it wasn’t something that significantly affected my writing. However, I’ve come to realize that sentences that are dragged out affect the fluency of a text and make it difficult to read and it needs to be