The second semester of my year in university is coming to an end. This semester, taking EG1471 has been a rewarding one for me. In the past and even last semester, I was not even aware of the many different styles of writing. I remembered my secondary school teachers mostly concentrated on comprehensions, grammars, some basic vocabularies and writing mostly story-kinds of essays. Proceeding on to the polytechnic, we were not required to take an English module and that affected my English as most of the lecture notes were very simplified forms of English and most of my friends were communicating in Chinese. Initially, I was quite disappointed that I had to take this English module. However, I feel that the many things I have learned so far would greatly benefit me in the future. Here, I would like to discuss the difficulties I faced when I have to write essays or reports in university.
My weakness so far is writing an essay without proper planning. I used to immediately start writing once I am given a title or some information. I would then write down anything or idea if I have in mind and keep doing so until I have no more idea or information left. Information would not be linked correctly and I would have plenty of parallel structure errors. I have thus learned that this is a wrong way to start and I have to plan first such as brainstorming for ideas, arranging them and do a simple outline to state my main points and continuing with the essay after that.
I also commonly make certain mistakes such as repetitious words and subject-verb agreement. All these makes my essay or report dull and not of acceptable university standard writing. After advices from my English teacher who taught us that certain repetitious words could be changed using the thesaurus and attending her lesson on subject-verb agreement where she also showed us examples and gave us practice, I noticed that I now have a better understanding on how all these will improve my written English.
Overall, university writing is vastly different from what I have learned in the past. I am thankful that I had to take this module and that it benefited me greatly. I know that in order to continue improving my English, I not only have to speak good proper English, I have to also constantly expose myself to reading newspapers, articles and books so as to have a better grasp of the language and thus be able to write better.
My weakness so far is writing an essay without proper planning. I used to immediately start writing once I am given a title or some information. I would then write down anything or idea if I have in mind and keep doing so until I have no more idea or information left. Information would not be linked correctly and I would have plenty of parallel structure errors. I have thus learned that this is a wrong way to start and I have to plan first such as brainstorming for ideas, arranging them and do a simple outline to state my main points and continuing with the essay after that.
I also commonly make certain mistakes such as repetitious words and subject-verb agreement. All these makes my essay or report dull and not of acceptable university standard writing. After advices from my English teacher who taught us that certain repetitious words could be changed using the thesaurus and attending her lesson on subject-verb agreement where she also showed us examples and gave us practice, I noticed that I now have a better understanding on how all these will improve my written English.
Overall, university writing is vastly different from what I have learned in the past. I am thankful that I had to take this module and that it benefited me greatly. I know that in order to continue improving my English, I not only have to speak good proper English, I have to also constantly expose myself to reading newspapers, articles and books so as to have a better grasp of the language and thus be able to write better.
hey,
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree less when you mentioned that you have no regrets and you're greatly thankful that you had to take this module. This module has also helped me a lot in my academic writing. I have always been struggling with my reports, but now that i learned a few techniques from this module, it makes life a lot easier. In addition to that, i have also made a lot of friends from taking this module, like you for instance!
wishing you the best for your exams!
Well done, Jonathan. It is never too late for you to learn the academic writing techniques. Please use them more often in future when you dealing with your reports and thesis! =)
ReplyDelete