Introduction
Since writing is a crucial skill for an educator, a person working in this sphere is to pay attention to a number of rules and details, improve, practice, and perfect their writing skills. There are various types of writing and each of them has a certain list of requirements. In order to master writing, one is to combine the knowledge of Grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, orthography, and syntax.
Besides, in order to form a well-balanced paper, one is to work on writing style, word usage, logic, and connections. When all of these aspects are taken into consideration, the final result is flowing and easy to read the academic text. The purpose of this paper is to present the self-evaluation of my Grammar knowledge and writing skills according to the Grammar quizzes and to the information, I learned about writing and formatting academic papers on the advanced level.
Types of Writing I have done Thus Far
Being a student and through my career, I gained experience in writing of various kinds. For example, I have some skills in descriptive writing. This kind of writing requires a lot of stylistic devices such as epithets, metaphors, and similes. Descriptive texts are normally used to communicate one’s impressions about some object, person, or event. Another type of writing I had to use being a student was narrative writing.
It is rather difficult because this kind of writing is used when one is telling a story, so logical connections, a chronology of the events, causes and outcomes have to be put in an appropriate order. Otherwise, the author of the writing is likely to confuse their readers and become the reason for misinterpretation of the events presented in the story. Persuasive writing is one of the most complex types of writing I have ever encountered.
First of all, it has to have a clear point, which needs to be proved. Secondly, the opinion of the author has to be laid out in an accessible and understandable manner. Finally, it has to have logical and evidential support in order to be able to persuade readers. Such writing takes a lot of effort, critical thinking, and preparation. I also have experience in writing comparative papers, which take several objects or events and contrast between them.
This writing requires a critical approach to the subject and reasonable evaluation. According to my experience, writing of any type is only successful when the writer as well-read and educated. Of course, practice makes perfect, so writing skills can be improved when one carefully follows the schemes and rules of writing, watches their word usage and logical structure of the text.
How My Past Writing Compares with the Type Described in the Text
Academic writing according to APA style includes all the most important basic elements of other kinds of writings, yet it is still different in some aspects. The paper written according to the sixth edition of APA is to be well structured, which means they need to include several parts such as introduction, elaboration, conclusion. The paper is to be well put, so none of the parts should be too long. Otherwise, the paper becomes confusing and the reader loses the initial point of it.
Before building the paper, an author is to think it through carefully and create an outline. Academic writing differs from descriptive writing because of its precision. It has to be filled with factual information and evidence. Writing academic papers the authors have to refer to reliable sources of information. Besides, APA requires that papers are formatted in a special way. The author needs to pay attention to how they cite sources reviewed for the paper, they also are to use headings correctly, remember the font and spacing rule, and indent paragraphs. Academic papers cannot have too long sentences containing run-on parts, or colloquial expressions.
Clarity and precision are crucial for this type of writing. They are achieved through the use of short and understandable sentences, the logical structure of the paper, reasonable sequence, relevant examples, demonstrations, and proofs. In academic papers, a writer is to avoid writing from the first person, unless it is required. Besides, the authors of academic papers are to demonstrate a critical and analytical approach, instead of criticizing, judging, and confronting. Opinions communicated in such papers are to be based on logical conclusions and evidence, but not on emotions only.
My Grammar Skills Based on the Capital College Tutorial Quizzes
Quizzes on the Capital College website became a revelation to me. I discovered that I have a number of weaknesses when it comes to my knowledge of English Grammar and writing skills. I spent a couple of hours doing quizzes of various categories such as “verbs and verbals”, “clauses and phrases”, “structural flaws”, “sentence parts”, “punctuation”. It was interesting for me to check my own knowledge of writing and Grammar.
The results were rather unexpected because the tests revealed a number of flaws in some fields. For example, I found it very challenging to accomplish punctuation tasks. I think the avoidance of comma splices is one of my weak areas. Besides, critically evaluation my own writing in my old papers, I noticed that run-on sentences are a typical feature of my writing. I deem these fields to be the aspects I need to pay attention to and correct through practice and evaluation.
I rate my knowledge of the rules of punctuation as average. At the same time, I have 100 % positive results in the tasks that required proper modal verb placement, and word ending correction. I feel confident about my knowledge in these spheres. Finally, just like for many writers, the subject-verb agreement seems to be one of the areas I have difficulties with, especially when a collective noun is used (Subject-Verb Agreement 1996). The results of my tests for this subject were better than average but still contained minor errors.
How I Feel About Writing
I can say without a doubt that writing does not dread me at all. I enjoy expressing myself through writing and I am confident about my writing skills. Of course, there is always something to improve. My writing is imperfect, and there are errors of different types such as typing mistakes, subject-verb agreement, punctuation, run-on sentences, and comma splices. Creating academic papers according to APA writing style makes the writer keep in mind a variety of rules and details.
For me, this is not a burden. I am glad to have my errors pointed out to me, as this is the way towards improvement. I am willing to work on my writing skills, memorize my past errors, and perfect my writing style. I have always admired the art of writing, I value the creativity of written assignment and I am not afraid of details. I believe that all the APA style requirements are reasonable and help the writers compose better and more precise papers. Learning about more professional writing with its advanced rules is inspiring for me.
How this Course will Enhance my Writing Skills and Attitude toward Writing
First of all, I expect this course to make a positive impact on my writing skills, help me build better and clearer papers, explain my opinions, and conduct my research in a more effective way. Secondly, I expect to practice writing and perfect my knowledge of English Grammar and punctuation to avoid future errors in these areas. Finally, I anticipate that taking this course will improve my logical and critical thinking skills, which are crucial for advanced writing and academic papers of good quality. I am aware of the challenges I would have to face during this course, but I know that learning and improvement are worth it. Persistence, patience, and hard work will help me overcome difficulties and obtain better writing skills.
Conclusion
This activity revealed the strong and weak sides of my writing skills and Grammar knowledge. It was fascinating to see how much I do not know in these areas. This activity created a field for my critical self-evaluation and made me excited about learning and improving in the future. Quizzes made me realize that I enjoy the challenge and that every error brings me closer to perfection. APA writing style is complex, and due to this activity, I know how much there is still to learn and explore for me in this area.
Reference
Subject-Verb Agreement. (1996). GrammarCCC. Web.