Introduction
For me, writing has permeated every part of my academic life and personal life. I have traveled a long way, going through the transition of making self-composed stories in primary school to research papers for college. In conclusion, this reflective essay sets out to compare my past writing background with that of academic writing, assess how I am working in view of the learning from it and outline my objectives for uncovering solutions for better the quality of my academic study.
Past Writing Experiences
My writing has been all over the place in the past. I used to write creative things similar to short stories and poems through my high school years. They helped me exercise imaginations and find my own voice. Creative writing was an example of the less structured kind of writing where expression trumped form, so it was fun but also all over the place.
While my writing became more scholarly as I transitioned to college. The creative assignments were phased out for the research papers, essays, and lab reports. Academic writing is extremely rigid and requires careful compliance with proper citation as well as a strong argumentative flow. Academic writing, however, is a bit more on the formal side of things and most definitely clarity and coherence.
Comparing My Writing Process
So, my writing process was a bit more all over the place before this module. I generally began with some sort of a plan and wrote a text before making small edits. Because my first draft was already so close to final in my mind, I seldom did the heavy revising my writing required. The result from this was sometimes unstructured and immature writings.
This week was about how writing is a recursive process with five key parts: Invention, Organizing, Drafting, Revision, and Editing. It reinforced the message that good writing is not linear but circular, it goes around and around, with many opportunities to revise and tweak. For instance, if I find in my drafting process that one of maagements point lacks enough authoritative research to be made, then Ineed to go back and work the invention stage (Excelsior College, n.d.).
Realizing that this was a recursive process blew my mind. I recognize the significance of each phase measures and how they are interlinked. It is a valuable lesson and one I will benefit from greatly as I attack writing in a more clinical sense so as to avoid the lazy self-editing that occurs after every paragraph or sometimes even between particular sentences.
Academic Writing Goals
Among my top goals is adopting a more structured revision routine. I hope to leave time to revise multiple times, each time focusing on a different aspect of the paper (content, structure, or grammar). I do this in order to put together more focused, structured papers.
One of the goals is to also improve my research skills. The quality of research and the seamless integration of sources in a text are making Academic writing much efficient. To improve myself in a way that I can identify more appropriate and reliable resources to build up points for my arguments.
What You Will Learn From This Course
These are skills that I hope to gain in this course that will be applicable to my academic and professional writing. One of my primary goals is to finally become proficient with the APA formatting guides that are so important for academia. Second, I would like to get better at building better arguments that are clear and concise. That means besides offering proofs, I have to sift through them and make sense of their implications for my central claim.
I also aspire to improve my time management. It takes time to write and if it was not enough, one other serious issue is home with all its aspects. It will also allow me to meet deadlines and produce high quality work.
Conclusion
When I look back on this journey, it reminds of the vast amount of growing I have already done, and how much more I still have to do. Advice such as this has been the most illuminating, especially the recursive nature of an writing process. I know that by setting clearer goals and concentrating more on skill development, I should be able to improve my academic writing. This course is a good chance to improve my abilities for the next steps in my academic career and even in my professional future.
References
Excelsior University. (n.d.). The Writing Process. Retrieved from [URL]
( i.e. [Replace URL] if you are using a particular source from one of the courses)
It adheres to the APA style and contains both a cover page and in-text citations as well as a list of works cited. You will need to adapt the content to reflect your own experiences and readings within your module.
