Ginny Miller
English 101
Ms. Epps
4 December 2011
As a young student, I was first taught the alphabet. As years passed, I learned to put those letters together to make words, sentences, and finally paragraphs in essays. For a large part of my high school years, my writing improvement seemed to grow stagnant. When I arrived in English 101, I realized there is more to writing than just putting words on paper.
Expanding your writing ability can be difficult and often times frustrating, but when done well, writing can change the opinions of thousands. In English 101, I learned the first step to writing an advanced essay is to read and annotate the articles that pertain to the essay’s topic. I learned the importance of adding questions to the article as I read it. The questions help me remember what statements struck an interest, and it is a great way to remember what points to cover in the essay. I also learned how important it is to research authors’ backgrounds. Any author with an extensive background on the information covered in your essay can help establish a stronger credibility.
Another important element of an essay is the thesis statement. Over the course of this semester, I have written various types of essays, and in each essay, the thesis is always the most important sentence. I have learned the necessity of combining the most important information out of an article into one sentence. The thesis statement captures the reader’s attention and sets the tone for the rest of the essay. I also learned that there are different types of thesis statements associated with individual essays. The structure of a traditional thesis statement contains three points that set the stage of the essay. Although the traditional thesis statement is associated with a five paragraphed essay, this semester I have been encouraged to lengthen my essays by thoroughly covering each point mentioned in the thesis with one or two paragraphs. In an informative synthesis, the thesis statement decides if the essay will be written in an alternating or block format. A block thesis statement is composed of a sentence that introduces the articles that will be discussed in the essay, but an alternating thesis statement will resemble a more traditional thesis statement format. This semester, the class focused on creating the most effective and appropriate styled thesis statement for each essay. As a whole, I feel that my ability to form thesis statements has gotten stronger. I can now pull specific points out of an article and recognize commonalities with other articles. English 101 has made it easier for me to formulate a well thought out thesis statement and essay.
Creating well-supported and detailed body paragraphs is the next step in a well written essay. Throughout this semester, I learned how to summarize, paraphrase, and quote particular information in multiple articles. Summarizing and paraphrasing have differences, but they are commonly grouped together. With both summarizing and paraphrasing, you must have a strong grasp on the article’s argument. To form an effective summary or paraphrase, the article’s main points must be present and discussed in a few concise sentences. The major difference between summarizing and paraphrasing an article is that paraphrasing requires the information to be cited while summarizing gives an overview of the entire article. Quoting from an article can be extremely tricky. Citations are required in an essay in order to avoid plagiarism. I learned that the key to choosing quotes from an article is to choose the sentences that put the most emphasis on the argument you are trying to prove to the audience. I also learned that with every quote, the author’s name must be added in parentheses before the period. During this semester, I feel I have accomplished effectively using all three elements: summarizing, paraphrasing, and quotations. My body paragraphs have gotten stronger and more influential because I have conquered these skills.
The final step in writing an effective essay is the conclusion paragraph. The concluding paragraph sums up everything that has been covered in recent paragraphs. Not only does the conclusion explain if your argument was proven or not, it is the last information the audience will read and remember. Throughout the semester, I have been taught how to efficiently summarize my own argument or the authors’ arguments that I am advocating in the essay. Also, I have been taught to rephrase and restate my thesis statement with the concluding paragraph. Combining all of these elements in the conclusion makes for a memorable argument and essay.
Writing is a powerful tool when used correctly. In my English 101 class, I have grown as a writer. Skills that were weak have become strong, and my strong skills have become even stronger. Having the opportunity to write a variety of different essay styles has challenged me to significantly improve my writing techniques. Over the course of the semester, I struggled with writing the informative thesis. I could not seem to grasp the concept of the essay. To ensure that I did well on the essay, I spent extra time outlining, thinking through my topic, and following the steps I was taught this semester. In turn for my hard work, I made an A on the essay. Without the training English 101 has given me, I would not feel prepared to move forward in my English career. English 101 has given me confidence in my work, and with the confidence, I will take English 102 by storm.
WC: 917
