Aspect of Maintaining Consistency in Style of Writing - Essay Example

When I edited my essay pertaining to my personal experiences in learning English as a second language, there are different steps that I took into account. Just like writing, I realised that editing a copy of a final draft of any written text is a process that requires a holistic approach. As such, I will reflect on the different steps that I have taken into account while editing the draft copy of my essay. The first thing that I took into consideration was to read my essay aloud. Silent reading in some cases is passive and you would not be able to notice certain mistakes in your essay. Therefore, I read the whole paper aloud in order to be in a position to identify any mistake that could have been made during the writing process. One good thing about reading aloud is that it gives you the opportunity to read between the lines and can easily notice any mistakes that may exist in the copy. When I read my paper aloud, I noticed that some fresh ideas were generated and these helped me to replace the ideas that I thought were not strong and effective. Reading the paper aloud helps you to fine tune the paper so that it can meet the expected standards by the targeted readers. The aspect of good sentence structure is very important when you are editing a paper. In most cases, meaning is lost or often distorted as a result of poor sentence structures in any piece of writing. I realized that this was also the problem with my essay. It was not up to standard with regards to sentence structures. The most notable point in my writing is that my grammar was not that good as a result of mixing tenses. This constitutes poor sentence structures since the ideas would not flow if the tenses are mixed. For instance, I mixed tenses as shown in the following sentence: “Most of the time, I end up mumbling but I showed…” the edited version of this sentence is “most of the time, I end up mumbling but I have been able to show some improvements…” A present tense plus present participle go hand in hand if the sentence has been carefully constructed. The tenses do not need to be mixed since they can distort on the meaning of the whole paper. In order to avoid poor grammar, it is also important to avoid using wrong words. In my first draft, I used terms such as “I was not a good conversationalist,” to mean that I was not good in speaking English. However, I replaced this statement with the following: “But alas, I was not conversant in English…” at least, the meaning has significantly changed since the new statement is meaningful compared to the former. The other important aspect that I took into consideration while editing my paper was related to the use of proper punctuation marks. Punctuation marks play a pivotal role in any piece of writing. Through the use of proper punctuation marks, it becomes easier for the reader to follow the events as they unfold in the story. In some cases, readers may fail to understand the meaning of the sentence if a wrong punctuation mark is used in the sentence. For instance, leaving a full stop at the end of each sentence is bad practice when writing since the readers will get confused. A full stop means that the end of the idea in the sentence. However, a conjunction can be used to show continuation of the same idea in the next sentence. Thus, when I edited my paper, I made sure that all sentences had proper punctuation marks. I also noticed that other punctuation marks like commas and semi colons make a difference when writing a paper. They help create meaning of the sentence and they make ideas flow in a clear manner. I read my paper loudly so as to ascertain if all the ideas were flowing well. This also helped me to remove all the punctuation marks that were put in wrong places. I also checked for things such as repetition of words or ideas in my essay. Repeating the same word in the same sentence becomes boring to the reader and it is a sign of lack of wide vocabulary. A subject in the sentence can be replaced by a proposition or a synonym to show variety of terms as well as to appeal to the interests of the readers to continue reading the paper. At first I used the word English more than once in a sentence but I realised that it was repetition. I would replace the word with the proposition “it” in the event that I used it more than two times. This has also helped my essay to look better since it is now comprised of a variety of terms meaning the same thing. This also helps the readers to quickly grasp what the writer is trying to convey if he or she is capable of using different terms in one or more sentences. The aspect of maintaining consistency in style of writing also helped me to properly edit my essay. The style of writing makes a great difference in as far as quality writing is concerned. In this particular case, I maintained first person narrative since this paper was mainly a reflection of personal experience with regards to learning English as a second language. I therefore read between the sentences to ensure that my writing was consistent. The main reason for doing this was that I wanted the readers to share my personal experiences with regards to learning English as a second language. I also chose this style of writing to show that this work was original since it was comprised of my personal ideas and nothing from other outside sources. I have also shortened some sentences to reflect my ideas not some general opinions that are widely held by many people with regards to the same topic. Read More