Practice Makes Perfect - Essay Example

Practice Makes Perfect Before I took Communication 101, I was under the impression that writing an essay was an easy task. Why? I though that you just needed to write down the words that came to your mind. After composing several essays myself, I realize that writing is a task that requires a careful but creative synthesis of ideas and a good understanding of the proper format, correct grammar and right punctuations. Not only do you need to make sure that every word is correctly spelled and that the tenses agreed, you also need to have a good command of words so as to make an essay that is very interesting and worthy to read. The very first thing that I was able to observe while reflecting on my essays was the frequency of corrections that I made in the document. It would seem that I drew more lines than letters. Not only did I delete sentences, I also erased paragraphs in my desire to make a more polished and worthy essay. What is remarkable was that the errors seem to lessen each time I write an essay though I still commit many erasures. In fact, I had four revisions of this title alone – from `Reflections on my Writing Experience` to `Practice Makes Perfect`. I would like to think that this is because I was able to improve in expressing myself. I also noticed myself to be wishing that I have written a sentence in my previous essays in some other way or that I could have made the discussion much more interesting if I had just inserted some examples or had use another adjective. For example, I wanted to change the following passages: ``Death is a fact of life which we should come to terms with. Since this is the case, we should also realize that all material belongings which we valued so much will not be ours anymore. When the time comes where we breathe our last breath, we will realize that all material things that we have acquired in our lifetime do not matter anymore. What matters is how we will be regarded by those who we left behind``. to: ``It is only but natural that every person will pass away one time or another and when he does, he carries with him not his money he acquired during his lifetime but the feelings of other people whom he had met, influenced and affected. He will be remembered not because he had a Ferrari or a mansion in an exclusive subdivision but will be cherished by the way he offered a person to ride with him in his Ferrari during a strong downpour or the way he used his mansion as a haven for indigent children. What we have done during our lifetime matters more than what we have acquired``. For me, the second passage is better and more dramatic than the first one. In this regard, I realized that I have become more polished in my thoughts and more creative in thinking of writing the things I want others to hear me say. Before, I was struggling on what to say next. Now, I find it relatively easy to find the right words. It would seem that I have a whole plan already in my head which just needed to be written down. I have also begun to appreciate how important it is to have a good knowledge of rules in grammar and spelling. It is not enough that I keep relying on Microsoft Word to check my essays for grammar and spelling errors. I should be able to detect this by myself because there are papers which need to be written in class especially during examinations and certain cases which are not detected by the Word Spell and Grammar Check function. For example, the sentence I typed as `I firmly as believe that what I have read happened in real life` is certainly wrong because of the word `as` which should not have been there but this is not recognized as an error. I also noticed that there are repetitive mistakes which I committed. For example, I always use the word `he` even though I am pertaining to a lady or to everybody and that I am prone to start a paragraph using the word `The`. In fact, my first essay was written that way but I have luckily recognized this and made corrections. There are still cases of three to four consecutive paragraphs starting with that word but I revise them after reviewing the essay. I also learned that there are also differences in spelling and use of language of English speakers. The British would spell words with `ior` with `iour` while their U.S. counterparts would be satisfied with the first. This knowledge would be useful in adapting the essay to the audience which I intend to be writing for. Proper referencing is also important. While the repercussions of being caught plagiarizing is indeed terrible, it is the fact that other people can use your work too and claim it as their own that makes me very careful in including my references. In fact, I would read the checklist of proper referencing every now and then especially before passing my essay. I also printed a copy of referencing rules from the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) so I can be more confident that I will not be committing plagiarism. At the end of the day, I have become more capable of writing an essay primary because of the practice and training I have received from Communication 101. Being able to write the essays myself made me more conscious of my writing style leading me to say that practice indeed makes perfect. References: The Owl at Purdue (2007). Research and Citation. Retrieved December 9, 2007 from http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/ Read More