How I Feel I Can I Improve My Writing

Previously on this blog-

Nah. Just kidding. 

Today I'm going to talk about how I feel I can improve my writing, which to be honest is not at the level it should be at. My writing skills are quite weak so the first step in becoming a better writer is, obviously, to read more books. I rarely find the time to pick a book up and read, mainly because my schedule is packed for this semester.

However, I am taking a course on Critical Reading and I think it can help me tremendously in improving my writing style as well as enrich my vocabulary. This is because the course strictly works on making you think about the types of words and the meanings they carry in context of the sentences. By analyzing these things, I am able to use them as a sort of reference for my writings in this class.

The next step in improving my writing is to practice writing and take more grammar exercises online. I have come to notice that my grammar is on shaky grounds, and more often than not I find myself confusing between the tenses which can be a huge problem, especially when I am writing my essay. Mixing up my tenses can cause the reader who is going through my work to be confused and thus, the message I am trying to convey cannot be reached. Furthermore, the incorrect use of punctuation in grammar can also cause confusion and frenzy among the readers. 

For instance:

Of course what they mean to say is that the toilet is only for the disabled, elderly, pregnant or children but because of the absence of the commas, the sign makes it sounds as though the toilet was specifically made for a disabled, elderly and pregnant child! Haha!

Back to reality, I did some online research and I found that another way to improve my writing is to never settle on a first draft. Usually, a person will write the first version of their essay and send it in straight away without revising certain parts of it. Next, you should always proofread your work before handing it over to your teachers or lecturers. A brief skim over the words you've written should be good enough to detect any spelling errors you might have made the first time around.

I have also made a promise to myself to find a fixed time to blog. So from now on I will be blogging at night. I hope I can try to maintain a constant time of which I make my posts.

See you next week! Bye!

Read more

Second day of class

So, here I am, ready to blog about my second day of Effective writing class! How exciting!

Our second class was a little more informative compared to the first class (which had been more of an informal introductory class where we all got acquainted with one another after the semester break). Now that everyone had gotten comfortable with one another, we moved on the interesting part: WRITING.

In this class, we learned about the various types of pre-writing styles as well as the strategies that would help us in developing a well-written essay. One particular strategy that had gotten my attention was the mind mapping, which I was familiar before but I had never really thought to use it for essay writing.

Once we managed to grasp the idea of the strategies, everyone split into three different and we were given the task to pick one style of prewriting and come up with 3 main ideas. These ideas would then later be combined with an introduction and a conclusion so that it would form an essay. The aim of this was to teach us to practice planning an outline of an essay before writing so as to make sure we had enough details to expand on later.

My group chose the mind mapping strategy and the title of our topic was a bad incident that occurred. After brainstorming, we came up with the idea of writing about a camping trip gone horribly wrong. Since there were three of us in a group, it was pretty easy to come up with three different points for the story. It took us 10 minutes to plan out the mind map and another 30 minutes to plan out the details.

By the end of the class, we had a complete mind map and all we had left to do was the actual essay itself. Since class was over, the lecturer gave us until the end of the day to submit the essay (PHEW).

That is all I can write for today. Until the next week!

Read more

The Kinds of Writing I Like

Today's blog post assignment set by the lecturer was to post about the different kinds of writing that I like. It had been specified that this did not necessarily have to mean writings that I done myself but also allows us to talk about ones done by other people.

For me, personally speaking, I really do love writing and that is because it makes my body feel more relaxed, the tension and stress I felt before instantly vanishes. I don't normally have a fixed schedule of when to write; it is more of a in the moment kind of thing I suppose.

When I do write, it is usually mini short stories. You may be asking yourself, what are mini short stories...which is perfectly understandable. You see, mini short stories are like short stories but well, shorter. They are usually the same length as an average poem but do not follow the rhyme.

These stories are inspired by movies or books, and sometimes even from real life conversations I have with people around me. I know we live a modern time where people usually prefer to write in a computer but I am more of a pen and paper sort. I suppose that makes me traditional in a way but its just that writing out my thoughts is simply more exhilarating compared to typing them out. There is a sense of originality there that I simply adore.

My stories are usually recorded into small journals that I keep for this specific purpose. These journals are small in sizes and allow me to carry them around with me, just in case I get an idea of what to write so I don't forget later.

In addition, I also have to say that recently I have come to like writing scripts as well. The script writing process is utterly fascinating and I enjoy the fresh perspective of how it is written. Normally, a written work or essay encompass the same thing: a statement, body and conclusion. However, scripts contain mainly dialogues between characters, which are only shown through the actors' emotions. This concept just wows me and I am currently trying my hand out at writing a script for a short play.

Read more

First day of class

Today is officially the second day of class in the second semester, and that meant waking up early once again. According to the schedule given, I was to have to classes today that were Introduction to Sociolinguistics and Effective Writing. I went into Socio class not really knowing what to expect and was surprised by how interesting it was. However, since I had to get up pretty early in the morning, I have to admit that I was still quite sleepy. Socio ended around 10 a.m. and our next class was Effective Writing, and so the 13 of us picked our bags and raced to the opposite building where our class was supposed to held.

Frankly, when I first heard about this class, I assumed it would be just as it stated it was: effective writing. Personally, I preferred writing than reading so I was ready to jump into this class with both feet. I was also more focused in this class since my tiredness had worn out in the previous class.

The class was not what I presumed it to be. I had expected to see a lecturer who would assign everyone a topic for an essay and hand it in before the class ended. Fortunately, this class was the complete opposite. The lecturer introduced herself and then gave each of us a turn to give her our names and where we were from. Once we were all acquainted with one another, the lecturer then began her class.

Since it was Valentine's Day, she asked every one of us to stand up and hug each other. I'd never done this before but I wasn't entirely closed off to the idea. We were also asked to compliment each other so we would feel better about ourselves. This experience was completely foreign to me, mostly due the fact that most lecturers do not have the time to do that with the students. I am glad and grateful though, to have gotten her as our lecturer. I really enjoyed the class and I am looking forward to the next one.

Read more