Peter Chew
ERH-101-02
Mrs. Smith
July 26, 2022
HR: Works cited page; The grading rubric provided by the course instructor for The Discourse Community of The Border War by Peter Chew. Peter N. Chew
Essay 4: Reflection on My Previous Writings
My writing over the course of summer session II ERH-101 has been a journey of improvement and learning. I sense that my writing has gradually improved in terms of grammar and punctuation, an aspect of composition which I have had difficulty with in the past. However, there is one aspect that still needs more attention to improve. Writing has always been a liked activity for me, and now having the opportunity to write on topics that I would have never considered has been an interesting experience. I usually tend to read and write papers focused on history or politics. There was a time in high school when I was quite fond of writing about great English authors such as Ernest Hemingway. Nonetheless, during this course, it was quite challenging to get started with the writing.
I spent a lot of time thinking of how I was going to write, and how that would meet the specifications of the prompt. But once I got past the hard part, I would start the transfer of ideas directly to my essay. Paragraph after paragraph of writing continuously until I stopped to take a much-needed break, typically twenty minutes. After which I continued where I previously left off. With the nature of the summer, session time is cut short, and assignments are due in a very narrow window of time. Unlike the traditional academic semester where assignments are due 5 to 8 days in-between, providing ample time to complete them. Summer Session provided a new challenge in which I had to improve my time management skills to complete my assignments and essays on time. For instance, trying to balance my study time between my two classes was at times not very consistent. I would find myself spending too much time doing homework along with studies for my economics class instead of my writing class. It was more of an attempt to find the perfect balance between the two.
Another issue that I noticed a pattern of in my writing was run-off sentences, which remain a problem that reflects in my writing. I understand why I have the habit of making these mistakes, which originated from my upbringing in the Brazilian Schooling system, where I wrote essays mostly in the Portuguese language, which has different grammatical rules and structures along with syntax and so on. Portuguese has a tendency of having long sentences with few periods and more commas. It is quite common to write more than it is needed to explain a concept in Portuguese, something that ends up being a long paragraph could instead be condensed into a few words or a short paragraph in the English language to convey the same message. Learning to write in both languages has always been a unique trait of mine. It can be quite confusing at first to switch between the grammatical rules and spelling since English stems from the Germanic tree of languages and Portuguese is the opposite having its roots in Latin. Both languages have their own unique and complex case of grammatical structures. However, the more challenging one to master is Portuguese, simply because of the vast number of grammatical rules and because unlike English, it has a constant change of grammatical rules that is set by the Association of Scholars of the Portuguese Language.
When I came to the United States for High School, one of several major changes was the instantaneous switch to the English language, all things were virtually in this language. And so I begin to write, speak and think in English. I believe that my grammatical problems are partly due to my bilingual formal education, it is simply that I need to spend more time refining my writing skills and grammatical rules in both languages but specifically English since it serves as my second language. The Portuguese language likes very long sentences that are verbose, while the English language tends to be more concise in conveying an idea which means that sentences are shorter than what one finds in Portuguese. However, one of my biggest keys to successful writing which is receiving a mark higher than a letter grade B on a paper is revision, I cannot emphasize how crucial it was for me to proofread my essay. Because the writing process itself can be very tedious and chaotic, lots of writing in such a short time, virtually spewing words at the screen, all to make something concise out of it, trying to insert a claim, or proof a point takes effort and making sure that your writing makes sense to the reader is very important. The most effective way to do this at least for me thus far was to revise each paragraph, particularly reading out loud. It allowed me to catch spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, run-off sentences, missing periods, or commas…etc. If it wasn’t for my revisions my finished papers would not be as refined.
Another improvement to my writing during the length of this summer course was the extremely helpful faculty meetings with my instructor for ERH-101 Mrs. Smith. The meetings would usually last about half an hour. However, in that short amount of time, I was able to dissect so much helpful information, the instructor’s feedback, and further explanation of the term or topic idea for my paper which I did not understand until the instructor clarified its meaning. Mrs. Smith would also make me read out loud each paragraph of my paper while we both listen for any grammatical mistakes or unconcise information that was written that doesn’t need to be in the paper. For my second essay, “The Discourse Community of The Border War” (Chew 1). I noticed a few mistakes after I had received my paper graded. Despite receiving a grade of ninety-five out of one hundred. The input that I had received from the inductor, made it evident that I should had done more revision. The paper had a few flaws such as grammar, and mechanics, and fragmented sentences, that need a comma or further clarification for it to make sense to the reader. For example, take the following passage from my second essay: “As well much of it was taken and brought by the younger generation of that time such as (that were) teenagers who were called upon for their mandatory conscription at the age of eighteen.” (Chew 3). Apart from the fragmented sentence and a few grammatical errors, the sentence is not wrong in the presentation of fact and how it ties to the central thesis of the paper. However, it needed more care and detail to properly fit to the mentioned paragraph, since it is evident that it caused the reader some confusion. An aspect of the paper that could have been caught if I had done more revision and corrections, but because of the lack of time and my time management it was not achievable. Something which has time after time come to my attention the need for me to improve my time management by having a fixed work schedule of when to rest and when to do schoolwork. My method of chaotic time management has done more harm than good for my college career, since it is making up a “deadweight loss” a term used by economics that describes (the loss of something which could have been achieved) in ample time that could have been expropriated for the benefit of my schoolwork.
Another example which caught my attention is a except from a run-off sentence which comprised of a fragmented phrase: “Baring no attention to the native African languages”. This phrase was attempting to connected to the previous paragraph of “Afrikaans and English recognized as official languages of the apartheid government… Baring no attention…” (Chew 8). The fragmented phrase could have connected to the previous clause mentioned if I had placed a comma or made it go before the clause to further add detail and further clarification. This could have fixed the error made. One of the last noticeable mistakes made in my second essay was the citation page, I did not properly arrange the citations in alphabetical order by having one citation being in the improper order. Again, these are all mistakes that could have been prevented if further revision and allotted time was utilized by the writer. These and a few other mistakes demonstrate what my strengths and weakness are when it comes to essay writing, all of which needs improvement. A fact which I have contempt to successfully gain with the investment of time and efforts to improve. A plan to continue improving the more I write, that is I believe that there is no such thing at being prefect at something thing at a single time, it is simply improvement and people especially writers never stop improvising. Every time I write there is something new that I learn which I further add to my arsenal of writing, because that is what is gained from continuous writing – improvement in literacy.
In my essay writing for this summer course, and according to the grading rubric for the essays that I wrote, I have thus far been able to successfully address the prompt fully and thoughtfully, advance a thesis logically by showing substantial depth and fullness, and complexity of thought. Furthermore, by choosing obscure themes such as with my Discourse Community of The Border War, essay I have been able to at least attempt to capture and compel the audience into reading my writing. All these points are further reflected in my grade for that essay. This course has taught me a lot when it comes to writing, I see it as a continuation from where I left off in high school with the completion of AP-level English courses of literary and composition. ERH-101 has opened new methods and techniques of writing, because of this course and the nature of college itself I am now able to write much faster as opposed to before my enrollment to this writing intensive course. I seem to demonstrate again as provided by the grade received for my essays, adequate college-level control of sentence-level expression, grammar, along with superior control over the use of sources and mastery of methods of documentation. My intended goal is to continue improving, by reading and writing more, to expand my literacy because there are still flaws being made by my writing such as grammatical errors and syntax. Such flaws which I know now and thankfully because of peer-reviews and instructor’s input. It is unequitable that I have gained further knowledge and writing skills that will serve me for the rest of my career as a student in higher education.
Works cited
Chew, Peter. “The Discourse Community of the Border War.” Virginia
“Military Institute. 15 June 2022. – date retrieved 26 July 2022 9:25:18