Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Your greatest weakness as a writer
By Monday, 2-28-10, write a paragraph describing your greatest weakness as a writer and blog it here. Again, use the classic "upside-down triangle" paragraph move: State the strength as a topic sentence. Develop the strength in a sentence or two or three. Then, give examples and details from your writing to demonstrate your claim.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
My greatest weakness as a writer is the use of expletives. Many times while writing, I use phrases such as “there are” and “would be” when there are better ways to write the same sentence. Other times, I write these kinds of phrases because I cannot think of a better way to write the sentence. In my third paragraph assignment, I wrote, “There are no disciplinary measures in force to keep students on task while in school.” In this case, it would be better to write, “Disciplinary measures are not in force to keep students on task while in school.”
ReplyDeleteThe greatest weakness that I encounter frequently in my writing is the usage of expletives. When I’m writing, I naturally begin my sentences with expletives and do not even realize it. As a result, my writing sounds very dull because of the overuse of passive voice. My continuous use of expletives was really brought to my attention when I received my graded paragraph portfolio assignment. I saw all of the circled expletives on my papers and realized that I need to edit specifically now for the removal of expletives. I try now to use the paramedic method to correct my passive voice, but the battle against expletives still goes on when I’m writing.
ReplyDeleteTranslating what I am thinking to what I am trying to communicate on paper, I often lose track of my main point through creating overcoordinating sentences. Although they are complex and if you have the attention span they will make perfect sense, my sentences often distract the reader and cause them to focus more on getting my point than reacting to it. Often when I try to simplify them, I have read over the sentences too many times and lost touch with how they are supposed to sound, and in turn am desensitized as to whether or not they actually make sense the first time through. Through varying my sentences, I feel that my writing could be a lot more clear and better move people through what I write.
ReplyDeleteMy greatest weakness as a writer is my use of comma splices. I use comma splices in nearly all of my writings. To connect two complete sentences, I insert a comma in my paragraphs. Consequently, instead of separating the complete thoughts with a period, I wrongly use a comma. In a paragraph I wrote about Carl Singleton’s essay “What Our Education System Needs is More F’s” I wrote, “A personal experience of mine validates Singleton’s point, my brother earned low grades all throughout middle school” in which I should have removed the comma and started a new sentence with a period, to avoid the comma splice.
ReplyDeleteMy greatest weakness as a writer is my inability to focus on a topic sometimes and clearly state what I mean. Sometimes I have the tendency to write an entire essay in one or two paragraphs, which is evident in nearly all of my first drafts. With my inability to focus on one topic in a paragraph, I often am not able to clearly state what I mean. For example, in the first draft of the first paragraph I state my topic sentence, but then proceed to try to fit the whole essay into one paragraph and the reader loses my topic sentence in the process. I need to learn to stay focused on the topic and develop the topic in more detail.
ReplyDeleteMy greatest weakness as a writer is how I clearly express the ideas that I have. The process from where I think of some idea to how it gets on paper is not something I am very good at completing. When I try to express my feelings or ideas through writing I communicate my feelings in a different way then I originally intended. Most of the time my problem lays with trying to fit to many ideas into one sentence or trying to put every thought I have down without have a break. I have said before, “I feel like the time we spend together isn’t wasted, but I mean I don’t think we do anything, I don’t want this to sound bad, I mean I have a great time being here, but I just don’t want to say the wrong thing…” This can continue and go on forever.
ReplyDeleteMy greatest weakness as a write is wordiness and unclear communication. I usually have great ideas, but struggle to communicate them effectively. I will write, thinking that my ideas are clearly communicated, but many times people are not sure what I am trying to say. I spend most of my time trying to develop my ideas, and less time on working to make sure that my ideas are explained well. If I spent more time breaking down my ideas and explaining them in simpler sentences, this would solve the problem.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I thoroughly enjoy writing, I do acknowledge that I have many areas of writing that I could improve upon. I believe as a writer my greatest weakness is the confusing word lay out that I use in my works. When writing I often find my brain steps far ahead of where I am on the actual paper, or in most cases the keyboard. Then later when I go back to edit my paper I usually am able to correct the little grammar mistakes or the completely out-of-wack argument structure, but I miss the more subtle misleading argument turns. When I read my argument they still make sense to me in my own brain simply because when I write I pour out my raw thoughts into the work. Rather than writing each statement slowly and checking for clarity, I worry that I will lose my train of thought. For example, In my the critique paragraph I recently wrote, I found myself skipping on a dime from the internal issues that were in the U.S. Army during World War II to the issue of racial genocide in Nazi Germany. My brain simply put the two somewhat similar ideas together even though they are too specific for one paragraph.
ReplyDeleteNaturally, I am not a good writer. Throughout the years I have needed a lot of assistance when it came to writing (especially for assignments). If I had to pick just one weakness to be my greatest one, it would be structuring whatever it was that I had to write. When I first outline a paper, I tend to finish with either not enough information and need to expand it, or I end up with the lateral and need to scale it down. Sometimes when I have too much information, some of the contents are excessive and can be taken out of the essay. For example, in paragraph assignment number eight where we had to summarize Steven Wise’s essay, “Why Animals Deserve Legal Rights”. When I received the peer edits, two of the eight comments that I read were in regards to the size of the essay and some of the content that I had put into it. I was advised to scale down the piece of writing and eliminate some of the insignificant pieces of information.
ReplyDeleteMy greatest weakness as a writer is my procrastination. I have a very difficult time developing ideas when I start my writing far ahead of the due date. My best work comes from the anxiety of having only a short amount of time to finish a paper to the best of my ability. However, those who write well stress the importance of developing multiple drafts, and that is difficult to do during the last minute. Grammatical errors that are easily avoidable will appear in my writing because I only allow myself one shot at making my paper great.
ReplyDeleteMy greatest weakness as a writer is my obsession of being too creative with my writing. I often find ways to incorporate analogies or word play into my writing. Consequently, I may take away from the meaning of my writing or insult my reader's intelligence when I pretentiously point out the creative aspects of my writing by underlining or bolding my words. For example, in my “They Say, I Say” writing assignment my topic sentence is too elaborate. There was no need for capitalizing all the f’s in the sentence, I must assume my readers will recognize what I’m doing. “F’s are the Fuel that allows students to ignite their potential for Future careers.”
ReplyDeleteThe Achilles’ heel of my writing has to be the verbose sentences I love to make. Frequently during the revision stage of an essay, I come across endless sentences filled with ands, buts, commas etc. Albeit necessary at times (to craft complete, good sentences), excessively wordy writing turns off a reader due to the strain involved. Take, for example, the opening lines of my PA #2: “Chris Badenhop switched his majors from Politics & Government to a double major in Geography and Environmental Studies. He says that it was a natural move for him as he wanted to restore natural fish populations and break down dams.” My roommate had to read the above sentences twice to comprehend their meaning. To say the least, they (sentences) were too densely packed with info. I find it difficult to kick the habit because it’s a style of writing I’ve always been used to. It’s only at college that I considered it a weakness. In conclusion, I believe I should have mercy on the reader’s mental capacity and break down my sentence lengths.
ReplyDeleteMy greatest weakness as a writer would have to be writing a conclusion. I find it very difficult to bring all my thoughts into a concluding piece without summarizing. From grade school to now, I’ve been told to just start with, “In Conclusion…”. In my mind that means, well in conclusion here is my essay again in a tiny paragraph. When reading other peoples conclusions, I feel as if they are tying the knot just perfectly. During editing, ive been told that I am just repeating myself.
ReplyDeleteMy greatest weakness as a writer is my lack of examples. Especially in research papers, I tend to not give enough examples to get my point across. Mainly I don’t give examples because that would mean I would have to do research. I don’t like doing research. As a result of my lack of examples I repeat myself a lot in an attempt to give my paper more body. I also think repeating myself will help get the point I’m trying to make across to my audience.
ReplyDeleteConsidering that I am a science major, writing has never been my strongest asset. I have always found it to be a challenge to write more than just the basic details. When writing for science there are descriptions and numbers, but very rarely emotions connected with these descriptions. Because my brain does not work in an emotional, artistic way I have always been challenged to include enough detail. When I was in fifth grade I remember failing a paper because it was not detailed enough for my teacher. This made me very angry, but was a comment that I have never been able to escape. In fact, on a paper written in college my teacher made the comment that they "wanted to feel the emotion." Although I would like to say that my lack of detail will improve, I am just not so sure that is going to happen. I would love to make people feel the raw emotion, but it is just not who I am.
ReplyDeleteEfficient writers make sure to focus on a topic and provide evidence to support their point. They take the time to make sure their writing is organized and that their arguments are soundly presented. I, on the other hand, often don't put in the time to organize my writing in the proper downshifting format. My paragraphs often lack sufficient eveidence to support my arguments. As a result, my writing seems to lack focus. I will often link topics improperly within a paragraph instead of providing enough evidence to support the original topic. Ultimately, my writing suffers from a lack of time and effort put into it.
ReplyDeleteMy greatest weakness as a writer would have to be my dislike for writing about material I take no interest in or do not understand. I have a hard time settling myself down for a paper that I know I am going to dread because I do not understand the uninteresting material. I feel that some writing assignments are unimportant and a waste of time, therefore leading to my procrastination. For example, many of my papers are last minute because I do not like writing and elaborating unless I know what I am talking about or it is straight to the point, like science writing. I am a fan of writing about science related topics, such as lab reports, because they are direct and outlined.
ReplyDeleteI have many weaknesses as a writer. I constantly use explitives such as “there is” or “there are,” which takes away from the quality of my writing. Also, I feel that a weakness is my lack of flowing sentences. I struggle with making sentences connect and sound like they belong together. I usually am very choppy and do not connect the relativity. In an earlier paragraph I wrote, “Something she is very interested in is the language and culture of these countries. Kim is also interested in film and photography.” The sentence before does not modify the one before and does not offer more evidence about her interests. I went off topic and did not follow a basic descriptive paragraph.
ReplyDelete