Reflective Essay for Sages Writing Portfolio
The essence of writing is to express thoughts, ideas, and communicate to others (Canagarajah, 2013). Writing has been part of life as a student before and throughout the four years as an undergraduate student since I have had a platform to share my ideas and thoughts through writing. Similarly, it has served as a platform to learn and research as a result of the several studies, books, journals, websites, and research papers I have been reading. Similarly, writing has helped me acquire great skills such as research. Most of the research topics I covered needed thorough research and a high level of language. Since I am an international student, and English is my second language, I have learned to effectively use English to communicate both in writing and speech. Based on the development as portrayed by essays I have worked on through this course, my vocabulary, organization, and paper structure have improved. I am confident in engaging in more researches in my second language, English, and I am certain to work exemplary in fields that will require research and be writing in future.
Based on the four years’ experience in writing, I have realized that the structure of a paper is the first impression a reader gets. A well-organized paper is likely to receive appreciation from the readers, and the readers can quickly gauge if the paper has been written as per the set objectives (Canagarajah, 2013). In my junior first-semester research paper, the general structure of my essay was not as appealing as my seminar essays. A comparison of the junior first-semester research paper, “Assessment of the effectiveness of cloud computing in protecting Google’s company information” and the last semester of the college essay “The effects of cell phones on social interaction,” portrays an improvement in the writing structure. As simulated in the junior first-semester essay, I was not familiar with appropriate writing structure since the headings and subheadings were not aligned as expected. Moreover, the general structure was not appealing as depicted by the organization of the paragraphs. The flow of the paragraphs were not based on a topic sentence and concluding sentence. Similarly, I was not informed about appropriate use of bullets and numbering, hence, making my essays not as appealing as it would be required. As compared by the last college semester essay, the general outlook of the essay is appealing as evidenced by the distinct subheadings. The topic sentence in each paragraph also match the contents of the paragraphs. The referencing and the footers enhance the outlook of the essay portraying how well the essay has been written. In essence, I have learned on appropriate writing structure that meet standards of quality writing throughout the four years.
Canagarajah (2013) opines that grammar and spelling are the principal writing skills in essay writing. As such, they portray the effectiveness of the writer in tackling the essay question since they show the writer took time to proofread the essay and revise it before submission. I have developed my grammar and spelling since the last essay in college has fewer grammar issues as compared to my first essay. My first essay had distinct grammar errors with many cases of repetitions, such as ‘more and more’ repeated twice in a sentence. Such errors depict lack of revision while revising the completed work. The first year second semester essay depicts lack of enough knowledge regarding referencing in the appropriate academic styles. Some of the data was left unreferenced such as the number of visitors to the website on page 3. Besides, the referencing style used is not clear. However, I have developed in research and general organization of my essay as depicted in the last semester of the year essay where I even understood how to use footnotes and reference papers in Chicago, which is an issue for most students. I have developed in the use of vocabulary from complex to simple and understandable word choices. Therefore, I indeed see the great journey I have taken and will continue to focus on even as I work on more research papers and hope to further my education.
Reference
Canagarajah, A. S. (2013). Critical academic writing and multilingual students. Michigan: University of Michigan Press.
