Self-evaluation

To be honest, my level of effort on my essays this semester so far has been not so great than what I wanted it to be, even though I truly know that the writing is a practical skill which close related with my future life. Previously, I have been trapped by fear emotion of writing and even become lazy to think about how to write a great essay. Beyond that, I have found myself need to taking more risks and challenging my prior writing style. Therefore as this semester has begun, I felt confused, frustrated and worried about not living up to my expectations, especially when I met the writing blocks. However, at the end of this course, if anything I have learned in ESL class helped me in life, I guess I would say yes. I believe it is very important for any student who wants to do the best work in the class to take a moment to evaluate their work and determine the rate whether their writing is progressing or not. More importantly, how can they continue to advance their writing? Thus, When I looked through my own work I ask myself: “what have I learned this semester? ” well, the most single important piece of knowledge I have gained in ESL class this semester was the fact that outlining before started.

What stage of the writing process gives you the most difficulty? Is it drafting, revising, editing or proofreading? The answer for many of us the hardest part of all is getting started. And the most effective strategy to get started is to outline an article. Before I got in ESL408, I had been just written a lot of paragraphs and integrate them simply, therefore, my essay often have a little messy up and lack the distinct clue. And worth than that, I get so nervous when I have to write, because I do not know where to start, how to start. Thus, writing is just about the worst punishment you can give me. However, the first thing that has proven highly effective for my writing is to outline my articles before I start writing, which is a crucial tool for both the structure and organization of my essays, and for the motivation that my feel when I am writing. What the blueprint is to the builder that outline is to the writer, particularly useful for 10 pages research paper.

Looking back my first essay to the last, I am gradually learned how to write a clear idea and well-structured essay. In addition, during this semester, I have strengthened my writing by trying new writing techniques, learning about purpose, and finding new ways of combating writer block. Moreover, the huge benefit of all is that I have begun to realize that putting more focus on purpose can result in a good and interesting essay further ahead since professor graded my second and third essays. I was overwhelmed by the length requirement of the essay, and blur the thesis statement. Which make readers confused about my articles and make it less appealing. Nevertheless, I have attempted to narrow down my topic and focus on the one thing, trying to not shift on what the priorities are. Before I recognize my own shortcoming, there have many part of content are nonsense and the clutter need to be cut. “Clutter is the disease of American writing ”says William Zinsser in his classic text on writing well.

There is a misconception that we would be helpful that the use of extravagant diction and lots of adjectives or note down all the details could add weight to our empty rhetoric. Instead, which may be just the other way round. Worse, the structure of the essay would scattered and center bias as a result of long length. Since I began to write my fourth essay, I have been replaced redundant expression with precise words and remember that needless words are those that add nothing to the meaning of our writing, which would bore the readers and distract from our ideas. Finally, the most exciting and challenge part of this semester for me is I have learned how to write a research paper. When the professor posted this task, I got nervous because I have never exposed to any knowledge about research paper. It is a great headache for me to finish Just only 3 pages essay, let alone the 10 pages paper.

That is sound that impossible mission! Following the instruction of writing a research paper. I have found that writing the research paper is an exercise in logic, imagination and common sense. The obvious reason is that writing it focuses you to learn lots about my chosen subject and which also make us become familiar with the collect the mass of data and information from different sources. Not to mention that the knowledge of MLA, Worked cited we have learned during this period. The most difficult part for me is to find a source and collect the information I needed. It is hard to discriminate between useless and useful opinions after all. Thus, I have to spend a lot of time to filter the information carefully. And the professor gave us a little tip to help me hold information quickly; we take notes on cards, which help us begin to zero in on a thesis as we scan our sources. What is more, there are, it must be said, I am the epitome of this group of procrastinators.

However, as an added bonus, I learned how to budget my time because the schedule of research paper set up. Therefore, I feel excited that I have been conceived of and managed a research paper from start to finish, Even though I have met with some setbacks and writing block. Compared to the first assignment in this semester, I think I have made progress through this course, either writing attitude or writing skills. Above all, the writing tasks of five essays and research paper during this semester allowed me to generate strategies to my writing skills. Critiquing my own work and the benefit I have obtained has given me insight into how my writing is progressing in this course and makes me found my shortcoming I had missed previously. In my view, the self-evaluation is a helpful tool, which can measure how much effort I have made and to learned which aspect I need to improve upon. I believe that evaluate myself will have a better understanding of my strengths and weakness in the future study, not only just in this course.