Introduction Essay for Writing Proficiency Courses (Essay Sample)
Writing the Introduction Essay for Writing Proficiency Courses in English 3000 and English 3001
All students who submit a portfolio for English 3000 and English 3001 are required to write a Reflective Introductory essay (with a Turnitin report). As a general guideline, this essay should be between 2-3 pages in length. The essay provides portfolio readers with insight as to who you are and what you have accomplished as a writer during the ten weeks of your English 3000 or English 3001 Writing Proficiency course. Here are some general guidelines that you should follow when you write the essay:
• You will be using an argument and persuasion strategy to write your reflective essay. Your whole purpose in doing so is to convince readers that you have improved your overall writing skills, and you are now competent or proficient enough to meet university standard writing requirements.
• The essay must be thesis driven: that is, you have to present a clear and compelling position statement. Remember that the thesis consists of a central argument or main idea. It is a strong statement of opinion, one that can be supported with persuasive forms of evidence. After all, the whole idea here is to persuade others that you have improved enough as a writer to warrant a passing grade for the course.
• Start with some major points to develop the essay. Your text should reference specific assignments, including in class writings as well as out of class essays. Mention how you made progress over the quarter in these writings, and why your portfolio clearly indicates writing proficiency.
• Since the out of class essays consist of three drafts, you may want to explain how you improved each of the drafts over time. Discuss some of the more significant changes that you made such as developing a thesis, strengthening paragraph content, and/or learning how to support claims with strong supporting evidence such as facts, illustrations, examples, testimony, or observations.
• You may also bring in some secondary points of argument, once you have established your strongest points of argument for passing this course. You may want to mention how you have improved your technical skills as a writer. Perhaps you have learned to overcome problems with sentence errors (fragments, run-ons, and comma splices), or maybe you want to tell your readers about how you have achieved better results in the area of technical skills (grammar, syntax, verb constructions, use of verb tenses, correct word form, etc.).
• While it is important to acknowledge the progress that you have made over the quarter, you should also mention that self-improvement is an ongoing process. Acknowledge the need for continued work in developing strong content for your essays or term papers, as well as in improving your skills as an editor.
• Check your work carefully before you put it into the portfolio. Keep content errors to a minimum. Prove to the portfolio readers that you have become a better editor. Readers are looking for evidence that you have made some progress in this area and that you can be self-correcting.
• Don’t forget to provide the turnitin.com report!
Things to Avoid
• Avoid negative commentary. Don’t be so self-critical that you end up having little in the way of positive things to offer to the readers about yourself. Instead, emphasize the progress that you made over the course of the quarter.
• Don’t spend too much time discussing unimportant matters. While you may have become a better speller or achieved a measure of expertise with things like using prepositions and articles, these are not the things that are likely to impress readers, nor are they (exclusively) the kinds of skills that you need to write a university level essay.
• Avoid writing an essay that is simply too brief or understated to impress your audience. A one page essay, for example, is not enough, nor is it necessarily a strongly persuasive argument that is representative of the kind of work that you should be doing by the end of the quarter. Don’t underestimate the importance of this self-reflective statement. After all, it is the first thing that readers look at when they are evaluating the portfolio.
Remember: The introduction essay is a gateway of sorts. It represents your first opportunity to get the attention of the readers and to show them what you have accomplished over a ten week period. Put forth your best effort here in the introduction. A good start generally leads to a positive outcome in the overall evaluation process of your English 3000/3001 portfolio.
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Reflective introduction
Writers who are able to recognize grammatical and punctuation error are more likely to improve and polish their writing. This highlights the significance of proper writing, as it makes it easier to convey messages without ambiguity. I understand the need to be a competent writer at the University and in the corporate world. Hence, I have strived to improve my writing as this will be beneficial. Even though, I already understood the importance of proper writing prior to joining the University, I had not given much thought to how writing could affect my school life and communication. The writing proficiency course has been crucial to improving my writing skills and improving competence.
One of the most important aspects in writing has been the development of a thesis, and this strengthens writing by emphasizing on the points being made. I have undertaken to do as many writing exercises as possible, while also focusing on learning expectations. At the same time, reading and reflecting on the work of researchers has helped me to polish my writing style. Since writers may focus on hypotheses and arguments in their writing, it is has become increasingly important to engage in prewriting as this makes it easier to gather ideas and thoughts. Before I enrolled for course, I assumed that the pre-writing process was irrelevant, but now I understand that it helps in development of thesis, while also making arguments more consistent since subsequent writing seeks to make a thesis stronger.
Another important aspect in writing is strengthening of paragraphs, as this helps to emphasize on the logical flow of thoughts. There were times I would use more than one idea in a paragraph, because separate ideas were not well explained. However, I have come to appreciate the need to strengthen paragraph content and using transition to connect ideas. Essentially, strengthening paragraphs through focusing on one subject combined with logical transitions and the correct length has helped to improve my writing skills. Hence, it is important to emphasize on each major point in a paragraph, and engaging the audience helps to get them motivated while reading my writing.
Another aspect to the writing process is recognition of punctuation and grammatical errors, as well eliminating these mistakes. Even though, I have done various exercises to improve my writing, long essays have proved to be the most effective. This is because one can assess their level of comprehension and mistakes made by revising the papers, while focusing on the instructor’s comments. As I started to improve my writing, even reading became more enjoyable....
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