Writing is an art that one can learn whether he/she is a native speaker of English or not. Foreign students in various countries take English as a second language so as to learn how to read and write. After a student takes a course in English, one is expected to master the grammar and hence learn how to write. A writer, therefore, should be effective when outlining the thesis of the writing which should be clearly maintained in the supporting sentences. If not, readers will find some things in our writing that we may not see. Writers will have strengths and weaknesses as far as writing is concerned.
After taking the course, the most difficult thing to me in writing is the use of grammar in that I can use wrong verb or noun at times. Use of other parts of speech such as articles, adverbs and adjectives is difficult. Wrong punctuation in a sentence has made my work hard as at times I use commas, semicolons or hyphens where they are not suppose to be and hence make my writing not to flow as required. The only advantage here is my willingness to learn how to use them correctly in sentences. Organizing sentences has also posed a challenge. Sometimes I am not able to give the topic sentence in a paragraph hence my work will not be perfect. I also have a problem in paragraphing my work. A well developed paragraph is important because it helps the reader to understand the flow of what is being talked about in the writing. I at times focus on different points of discussion in a single paragraph hence some points are left hanging which makes it hard for the reader to understand. The writing strategies I have employed when composing drafts is making a plan or outline of what to write as per the requirements of a given task.
A good plan facilitates the writing and makes it simple for me to follow what I have sketched. I normally do this by brainstorming on the main ideas in my mind and decide on which ideas from the listed ones are to be developed into sentences. Writing in this way will make me to follow a certain order which sentences will be in a logical order as planned. I always have a well defined introduction which makes the reader of my writing to anticipate the issues which are going be dealt with in the development of paragraphs. I also try to give a conclusion at the end of my writing to remind the reader the points discussed in the body of the essay. Some slight concerns in the drafting process include giving incomplete sentences which I am not able to organize them into paragraphs. Despite this challenge, I have learnt how to do referencing using the APA format. I now have a pool of knowledge when making a reference of books, journals and articles with regard to the order of the reference for instance, the author, year of publication, title of the book and city of publication. I have also made steps on what to do during an interview such how to interview a person, ways of preparing interview questions and writing down the answers for the questions. I have also learned a valuable skill on how to organize a paper before and when writing.
Compared to how I was before the course, I am a better person in English language as I have known how to write basic sentences putting into consideration that English is my second language. I may still have challenges in writing but the positive thing is I know the English grammar and I can easily identify nouns, adjectives and verbs and use them in English writing but at times it’s a challenge using them in a sentence. I have also grown because I know how to develop interview questions and write down the answers which I could not write before in as much as I do now. In addition, I can organize a paper in the required way because I have learnt English language skills. I can also analyze any given article which clearly shows that how I have grown linguistically. The input that English has in me is beneficial in writing references using the APA style.
