How has your understanding of academic writing evolved since our course began?
Does the description of the transition from highschool to college writing presented in “What is Academic Writing” square with your own experience of this transition? In answering, refer to at least three specific examples from the text.
My understanding of academic writing has evolved significantly since the beginning of the course. I was aware of different forms and styles of writing but throughout this course my knowledge has been expanding. Each reading that has been presented in class has opened my mind to different ways that the same thing can be said. The Rankine reading, “The condition of Black Life is One of Mourning” along with the “The Killing of Osama bin Laden” reading both present factual information but promote two different ways of doing so. I have also learned how detail makes a significant difference in the way an author is trying to express what he is trying to say such as in the reading about Japanese culture, “The Praise of Shadows”. “The Trouble with Iowa” made me realize that it is possible to easily incorporate opinion and factual information into one paper. Straubs “Responding to Other Students’ Writing” has caused me to become more critical when reading my peers writing as well as being more cautious with my own work. All the reading’s from the course have provoked thought and have opened my mind to using styles that I have not been accustomed to using in my previous papers.
For me, there are certain aspects from high school writing that correlate with academic writing in college, one of these being research writing. The text states “Perhaps up to now research has meant going straight to Google and Wikipedia, but college will require you to search for and find more in-depth information. You’ll need to know how to find information in the library, especially what is available from online databases which
contain scholarly articles.” In my experience not much changed in terms of high school and college in terms of research. Many of my high school classes prompted us to write research papers in all of our classes. Many papers were written in Latin, history, English and occasionally in science. The first thing that teachers told me was that wikipedia was prohibited and ALL sources was a must. Research paper writing is an area in which I gained a lot of experience in throughout high school. All the guidelines that have been set in college in terms of academic writing are very similar to the standards that were set in my previous years of writing. “Whereas your previous writing in school might have come generally from your experience, college writing typically asks you to write on
unfamiliar topics.” This has also proved to be untrue in my circumstance. My high school promoted challenging text as the first day of freshmen year I had The Iliad (meant to italicize but wasn’t able to on the blog) given to me followed by many other challenging texts in Greek mythology and philosophy. After all these readings I had to write many papers on the books and readings. One of the final points that have shown to be untrue in my circumstance is “Typically, you’ll be required to write an “essay” based upon your analysis of some reading(s). In this essay you’ll need to present an argument where you make a claim (i.e. present a “thesis”) and support that claim with good reasons that have adequate and appropriate evidence to back them up.” My high school focused very heavily on the thesis, providing many classes on how to adequately go about forming one and making sure that the rest of the paper sufficiently addressed the thesis. Based on this reading the only difference between my high school English/writing education with my college one is the terminology that is used such as “literary tasks” and the elimination of the word essay.
As humans, our understanding of different ideas, and tasks will continue to grow, and evolve in many different ways over the course of our lives. Most notably, one of these huge growth periods take place in the transition of high school to college. A typical college student will learn how to cook meals, wash clothing, party responsibly (or not); but a significantly overlooked facet would be the growth in a college student’s writing skills. Throughout high school, students are often spoon fed, struggling to push their writing to the next level, often times because lackluster effort can be forgiven and still passed with a decent grade. However, in college, this same approach will have you stick out like a sore thumb, and if you don’t think so, then you are probably that sore thumb. But the growth goes beyond solely effort. As I have been challenged by writing prompts that demand an understanding of very specific niche topics, I developed the importance of actual granular research. From there, I was able to see how stark the difference was from my writing in high school to now. Having a deeper understanding of the topic allowed me to then truly understand the nature of writing. This quote in the reading specifically touched upon it eloquently, “When we speak, we inhabit the communication situation bodily in three dimensions.” The author is highlighting a blatant contrast in how we speak in 3 dimensions but only write in 2, thus, requiring far more skill and effort to display emotion and pursasion in writing than in speaking. As I learned more about putting my thoughts into text with more challenging topics, I came to many realizations regarding the nature of text itself, and in turn developed a profound appreciation for nurturing it further. Through this, I was able to delve into “The Ability to Read Complex Texts.” In high school, I read complex texts but certainly not to the extent that I have been required to at the college level. There was a bit of a learning curve, but it was not as horrifying as many would suppose. In my experience, the readings just required a greater attention to detail than previously. Another interesting aspect of the reading was the “myths” section. I found myself relating to the same myth of the “never use I” rule. As college brought more complex readings, it opens the door for us as writers to display our ideas on paper with a more personal focus. I personally felt that my transition was extremely similar to that of the reading. I was anxious, and a bit scared going into my first English class; unaware of what was to come. However, once I started to become comfortable, I realized it was nowhere near as bad as I expected it to be, if anything, it has been the most thought provoking, and relatable class that I am enrolled in.
How has your understanding of academic writing evolved since our course began?
My understanding of academic writing has evolved significantly since our course began. I have almost abandoned almost all of the restricting rules that we have been taught to enforce in our writing throughout my years in grade school. After reading and being exposed to the texts we have responded to in class, like “Women in Russia” and “The Condition of Black Life Is One of Mourning”, I have become aware of many different ways of presenting an argument that are effective to the particular topic being discussed. It is clear that what is being argued in the writing needs to be analyzed and expressed in the writing in a certain way in order for the reader to be truly convinced. I have also become aware of the importance of choice of word. In high school, I always aimed to use the biggest words that sounded the most intelligent (we were even told sometimes to just find synonyms in the thesaurus). I have come to learn that just finding random words that mean the same thing do not always make the problem more clear or intellectual, it can actually work to weaken the writing.
This course has greatly evolved my understanding of academic writing in diverse ways. First and most importantly to me, it has made me more conscious to the fact that I have to make my thesis clear right from the beginning of my essays and stick to the thesis throughout. Texts like Alexandrova’s “Why Soviet Women Want to get Married” and other texts we have treated in class and the first paper we wrote with its thorough revision process helped draw my attention to this.
Another way this course has improved my understanding of academic writing is that it has made me pay more attention to the techniques involved in conveying a thesis, not just the thesis being projected. These techniques include structure, tone, transitions, etc.
Finally, the work we did with Straub’s “Responding to Other Students’ Writing” made me come to deeply understand how to better edit my own work.
In reference to the transition from highschool to college writing, the text talks about how unlike college, highschool didn’t give much insight or focus on strategies for revision. This is in line with my own experience because it is only in college that my eyes have been opened to some useful strategies for essay revision.
Apart from that, as the text talks about on page 105, college writing has transitioned me from taking a longer time to gather ideas for an essay through lengthy processes like concept maps to quickly connecting and thinking of ideas for an essay.
A final major transition this text touches on, which resonates with me is that unlike high school where I was given a list of topics to choose from, college writing demands that I devise my own topic or thesis thus giving me a choice on what to specifically write about.
My understanding of academic writing has changed since the beginning through our class activities. Through the lessons you’ve taught, and the in class activities and miniprojects like the one from today, you helped me connect the dots to writings, and skills that I never thought much about. A lot of which that “What is Academic Writing” explains are writing skills that elementary, middle school, and high schools don’t teach and it’s crucial that since we are in college now, the first thing we need to have a good handle of is academic writing.
Does the description of the transition from highschool to college writing presented in “What is Academic Writing” square with your own experience of this transition? In answering, refer to at least three specific examples from the text.
My experience is somewhat different. For example, Myth #5, I’ve always known. I’ve always had a decent grasp on grammar (or so I think), but not always a hundred percent confident in it. I’ve also never believed in a perfect first draft like Myth #3 states, but I believe in digital work rather than physical. I believe it’s neater and more timely and organized to revise and edit directly on the Microsoft Document rather than transcribe it countlessly. Lastly, I want to talk about analytical essays. That is slightly different from what I understood. In high school, I never had the assignment of writing an analytical paper. I had no idea where to start and where to end. But from the lessons in class, I’ve began to understand the tools and techniques and things to observe when working with such a task.
Sorry (my habit of copying and pasting the question to read it over as I write instead of scrolling up), left the question in my post.
I would say that my understanding of academic writing has changed, for the better.
I started college with the writing techniques that I was taught all throughout my high school career. Many of the high school writing techniques were very mundane and restricting. While taking this writing course, I believe i’ve began to express myself more in my writing. My writing actually has my personality in it now. I would describe my writing style as “freelance”. Maybe that’s how it should’ve been all along.
In regards to my transition from high school to college, the writer touched on many key points that relate to me.
He wrote about perfect first drafts, and lack luster first drafts. My previous drafts were the latter. I learned to put more effort into whatever I am writing — regardless of if it is a draft or not.
He also touched on the idea of the “five paragraph essay”. During high school, I was a firm believer in this writing layout. I find it very restrictive now, albeit a great foundation.
In regards to the author’s opinion on the use of the word “I”, I can’t find myself breaking out of that habit. I always try my best not to use the word “I” when I’m writing an essay. I will work on that, but I won’t force it.
In all honesty I don’t think I am able to say that my understanding of academic writing has improved. I’ve been writing academically for as long as I can remember and the objective of it has always remained the same. It’s to produce a piece of work that can be used to grade you. The only difference I can really identify between this class and previous years is the fact that now when I am writing I am encouraged to think a little bit deeper beyond the task asked of me, unlike before where no one realy pushed deeper thinking and drawing life experiences. One idea that the author mentions is that college will require you to search for and find more in-depth information And this resonated with me completely, prior to college I was rarely given assignments where I had to find supporting information on my own. 75% of the time I was given an assignment where the information was already provided in class and all I had to do was regurgitate it but considering even my classes outside of English, being able to find useful information and cite correctly is a necessity. Another statement that caught my eye was when the author mentioned that sometimes there are hidden tasks in the task that the professor gives and if this isn’t a factual statement then I can’t tell you what is. This is how it works, you get a task which seems to be almost as straight forward as anything can be but then the professor breaks it down and gives examples and you are exposed to a whole new world. It’s like certain words in the task don’t mean what they’re intended to mean and almost certainly everyone can understand the task in a different way than you do, just like I said before you’re encouraged to think beyond the task. Throughout most of the reading there was also a huge emphasis on making your point understood and backing it up. Prior to college my goal was to make my writing sound pretty. Pretty words, beautiful introduction, and strong concise conclusion but I’ve began to realize purely off looking at rubrics that it’s wayyy more about the effectiveness of your information to support your stance than it was about how beautiful it sounds. Sometimes your point becomes lost in the complexity of a piece of writing and that takes away so much from it.
Since the beginning of the term up until this point, my understanding of academic writing has changed. When i thought of academic writing before, I’d describe it as a torturous process that needed to be done. I was not a huge fan of academic writing. have since then taken a different approach on academic writing and see it as more of an opportunity to express myself while conveying my points. What I mean by this is, show off and take the academic writing more as task to show how much i know about the topic I’m writing about. Whether it be something I have known for a while or recently researched, it’s a fun way for me to enjoy academic writing.
In higschool a lot of the writing was strictly factional and most of the time had no true value. In college it requires more “research skills” that can lead you to finding the how, what, when and why and not simply the event. This is something i enjoy more than highschool writing. I’m also pleased to get away from the “5 paragraph” essay style of writing. It allows me to convey to the reader in my own style and have them read it in a way that isn’t like everyone else’s because of it’s structure. Lastly, I’m pleased to not have to follow a specific way on how i should come to my ideas. So often in lower levels of learning i was forced to make a diagram of what i wanted to write. This often lead me to getting stuck and not having a plan at all. You cant force someone to have an idea. I am much better at impulsively writing and instantly diving into my essay. Im glad that in reading they acknowledge that the “writers only start writing when they have everything figured out” myth is false for some.
My academic writing has evolved since the beginning of this course. I’ve never written a creative essay so when that assignment was given I was stuck. I’ve never had such a broad topic to deal with. The transitions from high school to college that the author mentions in the text are some that I can relate to. For example he mentions the five paragraph method with an introduction, three body paragraphs and a conclusion. I’d say about 95% of my essays were that exact method. Another transition he talks about is the grading. The professors grade you more so on your understanding of texts and research while in high school teachers grade you on grammar and spelling. He also discusses using the terms ‘how’ and ‘why’ instead of ‘what’ in your analysis. This creates a more challenging and in-depth essay than just answering a prompt in high school.
Yes, the description of the transition from highschool to college writing presented in “What is Academic Writing” square with your own experience of this transition. I specifically felt myself relating to the myths that were introduced about writing like “writers only start writing when they have everything figured out” and “perfect first drafts” (4). All throughout high school, I only really started writing my essays once I had a fully developed outline of my writing. We were taught to cut the essay into certain sections (introduction, body paragraphs, conclusion,etc.) Although this still applies for me now that I am in college, I feel less restricted when I write because I allow myself to develop my ideas and thoughts while I’m working on the piece. Always being required to make an outline about what you are going to write about (before you know what you want to write about takes so much away from the creative process of the essay. This also goes hand in hand with the idea of needing to have a perfect first draft. I truly enjoyed reading the text about shitty first drafts because it helped me feel less anxious about making sure everything I write at every stage comes out perfectly. Sometimes things need to be a bit messy when you write so you have ideas already present that just need to be cleaned up. Lastly, the text also talks about how in grade school, you can easily get away with using “wikipedia” or other similar sources as your point of reference in a writing piece. However, in college, you are required to find much more “in depth information” (8). This is probably going to be one of the most challenging parts about the tradition because doing ‘research’ throughout high school had always been a fairly easy thing. I am, on the other hand, very excited to start doing heavier research for writing task in order to uncover information that is not as surface level as wikipedia.
My understanding of academic writing has changed drastically since the beginning. Through the process of drafting i’ve definitely become more confident with my work. A few ideas that were mentioned in the text were. 1, in college you’ll be required to do more intense research towards papers. I don’t think that differs a great deal than in high school, the difference being that it was easier to play it off in high school. Another idea was using the terms why and how rather than what when writing a paper. I find this very resourceful because it brings a great deal of thinking into writing essays. I noticed that i was always stuck when i had to write really lengthy essays and probably because i was going about it the wrong way.
How has your understanding of academic writing evolved since our course began?
My understanding of academic writing evolved since the beginning of the course. In the beginning I was nervous and not confident with my writing. This course made me a better writer. I learned how to transition from different topics. Also learned to read between the lines. We had readings were the author that used a lot of metaphors. So you have to two and two together in order to understand. Also I’ve never dealt with general topics where you can go off and talk about multiple things to answer the same question.
Does the description of the transition from high school to college writing presented in “What is Academic Writing” square with your own experience of this transition? In answering, refer to at least three specific examples from the text.
“What is Academic Writing” shares the same experience I had. In the beginning of the passage the author talks about the anxiety you have when transitioning from high school to college. Then the author talks the importance of communication skills. I feel that with me if I have a clear understanding of the topic it would be easier.
How has your understanding of academic writing evolved since our course began?
Since the start of the semester, my academic writing has evolved tremendously.Firstly
experimenting with different formats and structures ,I have learned how to step out of my comfort zone and try new thing.Through out high school, I used to structure my writing the same way every time,an introduction followed by three body paragraphs and a conclusion, my writing wasn’t improving and was redundant, but I have learn that as a writer you don’t have to follow any rules,you are only bound by your thoughts. Throughout high school, I used to consistently writing about personal stories
and my experiences, but now I’m focusing on others literally works,writing critically,and we aren’t discussing the content but the technique used.
Secondly we are exposing our writing to different students has had a huge effect on the way I write,it helped me pay attention to the detail.Sometimes I tend to get lost in my thoughts or I might not pay attention to the details so feedback is tremendously helpful.
Does the description of the transition from high school to college writing presented in “What is Academic Writing” square with your own experience of this transition? In answering, refer to at least three specific examples from the text.
While reading what is ”Academic writing”, Myths about Writing really resonated with me, because all throughout high school, I followed those rules strictly, they were the fundamental behind my writing .In high school, I firmly believed that a writer should only start writing when they have everything figured out,the first draft had to be perfect, and the five paragraph essay.But I don’t think that it was really my fault, but the fault of the educational system,though out my education, career these concepts were implanted in my brain which made the transaction ever so difficult.