Personal Narrative: My First Year Student At Manchester University

Wednesday August 31st, started the first day of my college adventure as a first year student at Manchester University. I never imagined being where I am today, at college and being successful by learning new formulas, equations, writing techniques and having the ability to be hands on in my Chemistry lab. I have certainly enjoyed what I am learning here on campus along with having the ability to meet new people but one college course this semester that has stuck out to me Is English 103 First Year Seminar Writing Lab. Coming into college, I was not prepared for all these crazy long essays I would be conducting along the way. With the outstanding sources and techniques provided in English 103 First Year Seminar Writing Lab I have been able to …show more content…
But since the first day I walked into my eleven am class, I knew it was going to be one of my favorite and most helpful classes of the semester. English 103 has helped me realize what I have been doing wrong in my essays and has helped me accomplish little goals of improvement along the journey. At the beginning of the semester I had no idea how to structure my essay or how to make it interesting. That is when the class began going over sentence fluency, coherence, unification, organization, comma splice along with multiple other writing techniques that can improve one’s essay. All these techniques really caught my attention and made me realize what I have been doing wrong the whole time. However, out of all the subjects we have touched base on there have been a few techniques that now help me along the way such as sentence fluency, comma splice, and run on sentence. At the beginning of the year I was unable to recognized a run on sentence or comma splice, but now that we learned “Is it true that” trick , recognizing these errors are so much easier. Another technique that has helped me improve is the “Topic Sentence” section. Before this class, I never realized why a paragraph needed a topic sentence and why it was so important. Understanding the topic sentence now helps me improve my paragraphs and what information I include. As time goes …show more content…
My biggest weakness is using description when explaining a topic or an object. I have always struggled with description and imagination. Being able to describe something can help others imagine the object, and help them relate too it. Description provides a vivid image to the reader which is important. Another thing I have to improve upon is revising my essay before turning it in. However, I often have others read my essay and edit it, but very rarely do I read it myself and comprehend what I am saying. Although, I struggle with these in my writing there are numerous ways I could practice these techniques and improve my writing. Since I enjoy having others read my essay, the success center and friends can help me find errors in my papers. Also, reading my essay every paragraph can help me figure out if I am off topic, on topic or just rambling. By reading my own essay I am able to catch my silly mistakes before someone else reads it such as different forms of words. I can work on revising my paper by reading it backwards and start from the bottom instead of the top so I do not just skim over the whole essay. Because I have more than one weakness revising my paper can help me find where I may need more description about an object. Viewing something and writing down all the vivid details about the object can help me be descriptive in my writing when mentioning an object. Lastly, I will read my essay, have peers review