Introduction
Writing skills are influenced by the nature of the information and targeted audience. Same as writing style, length of writing is determined by the nature of the message in terms of content and the need for an in-depth explanation. This analytical treatise attempts to review improvements in my writing skills over the last five years. The analysis is based on Evan Thomas’ video and Unit 5 Journal.
Reflection on Thomas’ Video and Unit 5 Journal
As opined by Thomas, good writing skills revolve around the aspects of clarity and the use of simple language that can be understood by the targeted audience (Thomas, 2010). Therefore, unnecessary rigidity on the adherence to grammar rules is but a myth since the aim of the whole process is to communicate in a way best understood by a target audience. Clarity is the first and most important ingredient to effective communication in writing. It secures the attention of the reader and keeps the reader interested in the topic of discussion. Therefore, Thomas notes that the aim should be directed towards brevity which was a serious challenged I experienced in writing (Thomas, 2010).
As opined by Thomas, lengthy, complicated constructions, and unwieldy sentences are an instant communication barrier since they infringe effective concepts. Unwieldy sentences also bore a reader (Thomas, 2010). Brevity enables a reader to grasp the communicative idea within the shortest time possible without having to unnecessarily strain. At the beginning of the class, I used to write very long and ambiguous paragraphs. Thomas notes that occasional and exceptional long or very short paragraphs will give balance, class, and color to the piece. However, a writer is at liberty to use longer sentences especially in expertise writing and explaining complex phenomena as was discussed in the Unit 5 Journal. Therefore, a well-written document should be concise, unambiguous, and clear (Thomas, 2010).
Personal Reflection
This semester has been instrumental in developing my writing, critical, and analytical skills. I have tackled several assignments across the semester which allowed me to intrinsically display my creative and critical writing skills. The first paper I wrote was during the first week of the semester. Upon finishing the rough draft, which consisted of over thirty events, I decided to narrow down these occurrences in a second draft and introduce the aspect of flow and sentence connectivity. At the beginning of this unit, I had not acquired the skills such as accuracy, clarity, fairness, and style mentioned by Thomas as essential in the determination of an effectively written piece.
The challenges involved in collecting the relevant information alone made writing this assignment a gruel some experience. The most difficult part in the compilation of the work done in a group was the editing and selection of information to include in the final copy. At the same time, the presentation was supposed to be as short and interesting as possible to ensure that the target audience does not lose concentration. However, each of the five weeks ended with improvement in my writing skills as I began to embrace the writing tools discussed in class.
In summary, I must admit that there were a series of challenges along the way as my assignments required research and creativity in the compilation. However, being the creative and flexible person I am, I was able to improve my writing skills and minimize the research challenges. I can authoritatively describe my last assignment as a mature piece of literature consisting of well researched, properly written, and clean paper since the topic was well covered.
Reference
Thomas, E. (2010). Effective writing skills. Web.