Academic Writing Experience

Academic writing has usually been fairly effortless for me, up to this point in my life. Since I came directly from high school to this university, my professional writing experience is, sadly, limited to the two weeks notice letter I wrote to my boss before I quit my part time job at the fine dining establishment known as Chik-Fil-A. My high school English classes held some of my fondest memories in my high school career, second only to wrestling class. Whereas other students loathed essays and book reports, I saw them as an opportunity to exhibit one of my talents. Regrettably, my enthusiasm for academic writing was not equal to my enthusiasm towards class work and homework. I consistently procrastinated in most of my assignments that were …show more content…
My extensive works about history and persuasiveness neglected an entire style of writing. In my high school, use of the first person in writing was highly discouraged, penalized, and outright prohibited, forcing us to ignore ourselves completely while we wrote papers. I discovered the results of these rules in senior year when we were required to write about ourselves in lengthy detail and descriptiveness. I could write a three-page paper overnight with no trouble and still make passing grades. I could type up an elongated persuasive paper from a point of view that I did not possess. But the sum of these strengths could not assist me when I was asked to write about a student named Armando Santos. Even writing this brief assignment, I struggled to write the first paragraph because the subject was not a turning point in a war or how nuclear weapons save lives, but myself. It is a muscle that I am still training, yet is still weak and neglected. With enough practice, I should be able to write in first person with an equal amount of ease as third person. However, what is more significant and dangerous than my lack of ability to write in first person, is what occurs when I lose focus. I have caught myself switching between present and past tense within the same sentence incorrectly, using the word “but” like a skipping record, the weaknesses of my transition sentences, and the …show more content…
It details Shelby’s first time attending a Texas Tech game as a student and how she enjoyed the events before, during, and after the game. Her letter not only contains many casual words and phrases, such as “a ton”, “let me tell ya”, “pumped”, “cool”, and “ref”, but also involves words and expressions that are either slang or not proper English, such as “haha” and “lol”. Her letter contains many short sentences and occasional incorrect use of punctuation, such as a double question mark, and over use of the exclamation mark. Shelby’s word choice, along with her tone, punctuation, sentence structure, and stories about attending casual social events creates a less serious tone when reading her letter, allowing us to draw the conclusion that this letter is obviously not an academic or business paper, but rather a letter to a close friend who she has not seen or communicated with for an elongated period of time and desires to visit and hear a response from her friend. Shelby’s concern with Tatanya’s personal and social life allows us to draw the conclusion that Shelby and Tatanya are not casual acquaintances, but rather extremely close friends. She implies this with the slew of many questions she asks the recipient at the beginning of the letter in an attempt to gather information about her current situation and social life, such as “How