Practice makes perfect, right? I have learned this semester that practicing enhances writing skills. The individual and group writing projects inspired me to read credible sources of information and craft papers adhering to academic writing standards and guidelines. In this self-assessment essay, I am assessing the three major writing projects completed this semester. The projects focus on the media portrayal of Africa, the immigration law crisis in America, and the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City.
Writing is a process entailing four distinct steps; prewriting, drafting, revising, and editing (Abas and Aziz 4). Before commencing to write my essays, I had to think and gather information to generate appropriate ideas and convincing arguments. I searched for credible and peer-reviewed sources on the library, online databases, and the Internet focusing specifically on the topics selected (Baker 2). For instance, in my essay about the immigration law crisis in America, I found vital facts in sources such as “The Facts on Immigration Today” published by the Center for American Progress. I learned that it is more comfortable at an individual level to meet specific writing goals and audience expectation conventions of the genre, medium, and rhetorical situation. The experience is different in a group task, as the purposes of the specific writer involved and the perception of meeting the particular needs of the audience vary. As a result, in our group task, we had to discuss and settle on the contemporary issue affecting all of us and the entire society. As well, we had to decide on one writing convention (MLA style) to ensure that our writing is uniform.
Drafting is the second step in writing. After locating credible sources of information, I had to put ideas into structured sentences and paragraphs (Abas and Aziz 5). In this stage, I had to read the sources selected keenly, understand the content, and use them to explain and support my ideas fully. I read many references to connect ideas and solidify my arguments. Drafting the group essay on the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City was more relaxed and smooth because of teamwork. We shared the project, every member handling a specific section within a stipulated time-frame. In the course of this project, I learned and acknowledged that our linguistic capabilities vary. Due to cultural diversity, I learned that how we communicate verbally and through writing differs. We used the linguistic differences as resources to develop and cultivate rhetorical sensibility through our entire writing project.
According to Abas and Aziz, revising is the stage of writing that allowed me to check through my essays and research papers to ensure conformity with writing standards and guidelines (5). In my media portrayal of Africa’s piece, I explained how the start of imperialism commenced with the scramble for Africa. However, the main challenge I have noted is that I did not cite and reference the sources of information used correctly. For instance, in the second paragraph, I wrote: “In the article ‘A scramble for Africa.'” I have also noted the problem in our group essay about the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City. Though we provided the list of sources in the works cited page, we failed to acknowledge sources used correctly according to MLA standards. As my writing evolved in the semester, I have learned to cite and reference the sources used. For instance, in the second paragraph of the literature section in the research paper about the immigration law crisis, I wrote: “According to Garrett (2006), learning English for immigrants and refugees is a challenge.” In the same paragraph, I correctly cited the page number in APA style as follows “as one Chinese immigrant explains (Garrett, 2006, p. 6)”.
Editing is the final stage of writing academic essays and research papers. In this stage, the writer checks and corrects grammar, mechanical, and spelling mistakes. Abas and Aziz assert that the edits give an essay a professional appearance (5). Editing is one of the areas that I spent more of my writing time this semester. I was able to identify and correct spelling, grammatical, and mechanical errors. However, this is an area that I need to practice more to improve. For instance, in my essay about immigration in America, I have identified a few grammatical errors I missed when editing the paper. In the literature review, the third paragraph, I wrote, “get an American citizenship” instead of “get American citizenship.” Besides, I wrote “getting a U.S. citizenship” instead of “getting U.S. citizenship.” In both sentences, I incorrectly used the articles ‘an’ and ‘a,’ respectively.
In brief, practicing individually and collectively on the strategies for reading, prewriting, drafting, revising, and editing transformed my writing skills this semester. Working on the group essay about the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City enabled me to acknowledge my and group members’ range of linguistic differences. We capitalized on writing differences as a resource to develop rhetorical sensibility in our essay. In both writing projects, engaging in genre analysis and multimodal composing using various credible sources of information enabled us to formulate and articulate a strong stance through and in writing. In that regard, I have honed my writing skills and competencies in all aspects, including finding credible sources, integrating, paraphrasing, and properly citing and referencing according to MLA and APA guidelines.
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Works Cited
Abas, Imelda, and Noor Aziz. “Model of the Writing Process and Strategies of EFL Proficient Student Writers: A Case Study of Indonesian Learners.” Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities, vol. 26, no. 3, 2018, pp. 1-20.
Baker, Kimberly M. “Peer Review as a Strategy for Improving Students’ Writing Process.” Active Learning in Higher Education, vol. 17, no. 3, 2016, pp. 1–14., 10.1177/1469787416654794.
