Since we just finished the on demand essay today in class, it really made me realize how much my writing has improved. Not only did I feel the entire essay flowed better than usual, I was also using much better grammar than in my previous writing. It was much easier for me to get all of my thoughts down while getting to the point. I definitely believe that my writing has improved from being in ERW for a few months. From doing on demand essays, grammar lessons, and blogging I've gotten the chance to improve my writing day by day.
One of the very effective tools we are using to improve our writing is the Rhetorical Précis. I feel that this helps me specifically because I'm the type of person to go on and on but with the Rhetorical Précis you have to learn to cut it down. The Rhetorical Précis is basically like a brief summary of a passage and summarizing can be difficult for me at times because I have so much I want to say. You have to break down a whole passage in about 4 sentences so you have to be able to pick out the main idea of the article. Practicing this through the Rhetorical Précis was helpful for my on demand essay because I was able to make it less wordy and repetitive.
Another reason I feel my writing has gotten better is from annotating articles. Being able to read an article and break it down to get the true meaning out of it makes it way easier to write. Annotating also helps to understand the main focus of the article. All in all, my writing skills are starting to get better just from these activities and techniques we have been learning and executing in ERW.
I feel the same way. After I finished my writing today I was very pleased with how everything flowed and how easily I was able to get my point across. I think the rhetorical précis helped with only writing what you need to say and getting rid of everything else. Annotating has also helped me; I feel like I'm more focused when I am annotating and I fully understand what I am reading. I feel like everyone should take ERW.
ReplyDeleteI one hundred percent agree. Annotating the articles helped tremendously because I felt like I was connecting with the text and being engaged in an involving conversation with the author. My annotations helped especially with writing my on demand essay today because they were simply an invaluable guide to my own writing.
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