It is already 2007! It is a new year, so our class is choosing goals for writing. As a student in that class, I have chosen my own goals that I will, or hope, to accomplish this year.
My very first goal I chose is to improve in “Drafting and Revising.” I hardly check carefully after writing my first draft (I use up all my energy and become lazy). Because of this, even though my contents are marvelous, it is not organized and seems messy. My method to this goal is to brainstorm first and write an outline.
Word choice is another category I am critically weak in. In my writings, all of my vocabularies are extremely boring. Powerful vocabularies will strengthen my sentences, and I hope I can use more vocabularies in a wider area. Since I have learned many words, I will use the dictionary and the thesaurus to provide a better paper than last year’s. This is the method I am planning to use.
It is all in my head, but I cannot use them. This is another major problem I am having when I have to write a paper. I am trying to use a variety of techniques to support my sentences, and this is my one of my goals. My method to this goal is to find “strong” examples, such as finding a real person who can be the perfect example and has the perfect one instead of saying “suppose this person really existed…” or giving such lame support.
Highlighting each sentences with a highlighter showed me my sentences’ lengths. They are not choppy, but do not vary in lengths either. My goal is to use different types of sentence structures and lengths. My great ideas are ruined by same sentence lengths, and I think I can solve this problem by using suggested types of sentences in the packet (complex and compound-complex sentences, etc).
“Effect” and “affect” always twists my brain and my essays. I am confused with some vocabularies that sound very identical to each other, such as eminent and imminent. I do not want to be laughed at because I used the wrong vocabulary, so I decided “Confused Terms” as another goal. I will look up in the dictionary whenever I am confused between the words I use. This way, I can learn vocabularies and write properly at the same time.
I try to be very descriptive, but I end up using adverbs that does not match with the sentence or using very plain adverbs. I will try to use and learn more adverbs that I can use to make my sentences powerful. Dictionaries are always there, or I can ask my classmates or the teacher if the adverb matches or not.
Internet may have the most sources, but not the most accurate ones. For research projects, I will try to use more than electronic sources. Newspapers and magazines are always available, and I can use them to amuse the person who reads my research paper. My method for this category is to gather newspapers and magazines about a topic when it is given.
