Reflective Essay On Following Rules

In Stephen King's memoir, On Writing, he discusses many of the fundamentals of writing he believes are crucial to great writers. In the part of the book titled, "The Craft of Writing," King reveals some of his many rules which have led to great success in the writing field. Out of the many points he explained, I noticed three rules that could benefit my writing the most as an AP Language and Composition student. Though simple, these rules opened my eyes to how I could advance my writing skills by following a few easy fixes. King trusted in writing dialogue truthfully, using the most appropriate vocabulary, and his process of revising. By adhering to these seemingly simple tasks, a student's writing quality could increase notably.

Have you ever wondered whether a writer’s voice and the standard rules of academic writing can exist on the same page? According to Dr. Debra Pena, English Professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), and Mathew Teorey, English Professor at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, and the author of "Using Freshman Composition to Analyze What Students Really Know about Grammar", a writer’s voice and the process of academic writing can exist on the same page (Personal Communications February 13, 2017, Teorey 2). However, my first essay in Freshman Composition II was a Classical Argument on “Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE): Is it the New Death Sentence for Future Athletes Playing Sports in America?”, I sacrificed my

As this essay suggests, a sixteen year old Russell Baker learns that his ostensibly “boring” professor, Mr. Fleagle, wished to instill his values of the art of writing. That is, the essence of “the essay”, or writing in general, is to properly express the topic that you are passionate about in a manner that is both personal and inviting; invoking strong emotions of one kind or another in the reader. Meanwhile, sticking to the rules of structure, spelling, and grammar are a secondary consideration in this concern. Baker realized that when writing a paper, it doesn’t always have to follow all the rules of writing; he learns that the true art of writing is when he writes from his heart; the meaning of the story, the essence of it. Therefore, finding a connection to your subject or topic, by any reasonable, probable, or logical means is key for an amateur writer.

As I was reading Melissa Duffy’s “Inspiration, and Craig Vetter’s “Bonehead Writing,” I found myself connecting with Vetter’s paper more than Duffy’s. I found that the presentation in “Bonehead Writing” to capture my attention, and that Vetter’s feelings about writing was similar to my opinion on writing. Through his wording and humor, I think Craig Vetter wrote the best essay.

Ballenger begins by talking about his experiences as a young writer in grade school. He was ridiculed for writing badly, particularly for making his essays “awkward” according to his teacher, Mrs. O’Neill. He often felt under pressure to write the perfect sentence with the perfect words and phrases making his writing unsuccessful in his teachers eyes. Now as a teacher himself he finds his students struggling to put words on paper and express themselves. He blames the educational system for his students inability to write with their own style and voice. Ballenger stresses the ability to write is more about the topic and the student’s interest in the essay than the grammar and structure of the essays. He finds that other professors view their students essays as badly written with sloppy writing, yet Ballenger focuses on the writing that his students do well. He points out that

In this short passage by William Zinsser, Zinsser used compare and contrast to inform the readers about his personal opinions of being a writer. Due to different understandings and opinions on how to be a good writer, Zinsser decided to use compare and contrast in order to present a clean and detailed differences to the reader about how different people’s writing style can vary. By doing this, it would be extremely helpful for the readers to distinguish the differences of each writing style, see the benefits and disadvantages, and ultimately gather enough information to decide which style fits them the best. At the panel with Dr. Brock, Zinsser gave the audience a broader view of different writing styles and how they contribute differently.

Transitioning from high school to college can be overwhelming. Before English 1301, I did not worry about preparing for college. I quickly realized that my little background in writing essays was not enough for college courses. Writing is not just a skill that I will need for English classes. In college, I will have to use effective writing skills in all my classes to complete research papers, essay tests and communicate with professors. Throughout my education, writing strategies persisted to be a challenge for me. I dreaded writing because I could never find ways to transition my thoughts from my mind to the paper. Ironically, a class that petrified me due to the amount of required writing ended up helping me in numerous ways. English 1301 and my professor prepared me for college and real life by giving me a foundation of effective learning strategies.

When discussing both act and rule utilitarianism, it is important to understand that both of them agree in terms of the overall consequence of an action, because they emphasize on creating the most beneficial pleasure and happiness in the outcome of an act. Despite this fact, they both have different principles and rules that make them different from each other. Act utilitarianism concentrates on the acts of individuals. Meaning that if a person commits an action, he/she must at least have a positive utility. The founders of utilitarianism define positive utility as happiness and pleasure and consider it to be a driving force of all positive and morally right acts. According to Jeremy Bentham, and John Mill Stuart happiness to them comes from

Transitioning from the way I have been taught to write as a high school student has been the most challenging and influential change I have witnessed in my writing. To elaborate, in high school, we were taught the basis for writing any essay regardless of the audience or topic was the rigid five-paragraph essay structure. Through the Reader Expectation Theory assignment, which involved reading and writing about the theory, I learned how to properly write an essay and the importance of tailoring any piece of work to your audience. This approach differed from my previous method of writing. Formerly I would just gather the information and compose the essay completely disregarding the organization and overall structure of the essay. It is

E. B. White was very passionate about writing and more specifically the style of it. So when White found William Strunk's book full of writing rules and tips, he knew he could not let his old professor's book disappear with the times. So he took the time to publish a book to share Strunk’s wisdom with the world.

Summary: Irvin addresses the common myths of writing in his article and states the proper solution for each myth. This article also addresses what academic writing is and how thinking critically allows us to understand what academic writing is. Irvin also makes a point of how most if not all essays and writing done in college is done so in an argumentative manner. Irvin’s conclusions are that writing has its own format and set of rules that differs with each kind of writing and will be subject to change by the writer.

There is no doubt the society in The Giver contrasts our own, however the similarities between the two might be startling. The dystopian environment in the Giver can be a humbling thought for how good we have it in our life. Following that trend, we are alo forced to look at the horrifying similarities between these two societies. As we look at The Giver’s rules, family, and leadership we see the vast differences and also the shocking familiarities.

Culture is a belief system commonly shared in the society. Every human in a society share a common value and behavior distinct from other people, depending on where one was raised. That being said, I like to compare and contrast three divergent characteristics and describe which one I hail from.

While I do know some of the rules, due to my previous English teachers in school, there is still much that I do not know. But, through the course of this past semester I have learned a great deal about different and new rules. This class has taught me a great deal about writing and how to correctly write an essay. Writing is a system of many rules and is a way for people to express their creativity. This class has given me much room to express myself creatively and gain more knowledge. I believe that through this past semester, my writing knowledge, and writing ability has grown significantly. I hope to continue growing my knowledge about writing throughout the rest of my days in school and the rest of my

The ability to write well is very useful for our personal and professional lives. It helps students, business people, politicians, writers, bloggers, marketers and everyone who has ever needed to arrange words together to convey ideas or opinions. The written word has become an essential means of social communication: mastery of it helps you to enthrall and persuade an audience that would look upon you favorably in return.