It all started with a spoon that could talk. When I was in 2nd
grade, I wrote a book for something called Young
Authors. I got weirdly into it and wrote a book about a talking spoon and
wanted to be a real author from that point on. So I am not a real-life author at this point
in my life but I still do enjoy writing (for the most part). So what kind of
writing do I enjoy? Mostly casual and informal types of writing; BLOGGING,
LETTERS TO FRIENDS, “ABOUT ME” ESSAYS. [series of adjectives connected with
commas and no and’s] And what do I dislike to write? Research papers. There is
something about a research paper that makes me want to cringe. They are so
boring and dull; I feel like it is so hard to get your voice through all of the
BS that is put in there to make it the to the required 10+ pages. Basically, I love
writing when it’s on my own time and the topic is something I can either relate
to or is something I’m interested in.
Being someone who enjoys writing, I am always looking for
ways to improve, especially since I am hoping to become a middle school English
or Language Arts teacher. That is why I’m excited to be taking this course!
Overall, I would say that I’m a pretty decent writer but there are always ways
of improvement. I am an avid semi-colon user. Whether I use the semi-colon in
the correct way or not, I am unsure. I
do it in hopes to break up a run-on sentence. My own definition of a semi-colon
would be a sentence that could either have a comma or a period and still make
sense. It’s kind of a shady definition that probably doesn’t fit the real one
at all but like I said, I’m looking to improve! An example of my semi-colon use
comes from this very blog post: “They are so boring and dull; I feel like it is
so hard to get your voice through all of the BS that is put in there to make it
the to the required 10+ pages.” Along with trying to avoid a run-on sentence, I
use a semi-colon to connect two sentences or ideas that go along with each
other.
Something else that is seen in my writing is the over-use of
the same word. This is something that I have been critiqued on in almost all of
my academic writing since I’ve been in college. Here is an example from this
blog post (once again): “When I was in 2nd grade, I wrote a book for something called Young Authors. I got weirdly into it and
wrote a book about a talking spoon.”
I get told that using the same word a lot in one paragraph is REPETITIVE AND BORING
AND WRONG. [series of adjectives connected with and and no commas] I think I do this to try and emphasize one word
so the reader can really get a grip on what I’m trying to say. It is something
that I have to constantly be aware of so this is something I hope I can change (accidentally used "something" twice in one sentence and realized it after rereading before I post).
