200901527 Paek Haegyung ch.1 24~25p

Chapter 1. 24~25p.

 

1. What are your strengths as a writer:

I think the strengths that I have in writing are structuring an essay, making an essay as easy as possible to read, and thinking deeply about the writing topic.

     First of all, structuring an essay is the most important strength that I think I have when writing an essay. Through many writing classes and lesson, I learned that one of the most important things in writing is the overall organization. That is, the reader could clearly see what the writer wants to say in a structured way because an organized essay seems logical and convincing. So, when I revise my writing, I always try to care first that it has introduction, body, and conclusion part.

     The second writing skill that I think I have is making an essay as easy as possible to read. This is more of a personal style than writing ability, but considering that there are some people who write "difficultly", I think my easy writing style is a strong point. For example, I try to use easy vocabulary that is frequently used in real life and also to make a sentence clear and well connected with each other.

     Lastly, I think thinking deeply about the topic is my third strength as a writer. When I start writing, I try to find out information as much as possible, usually through internet. The form of writing is important but its content is also crucial. If you have not enough knowledge about the topic, you cannot write well. Therefore, I believe that trying to write a structured essay, to make it easy to read, and to search for information about the topic are the good skills that I have in writing.

 

2. What do you find most difficult about writing:

     Although I have some good points in writing, I also have difficulties about writing. The first difficulty I find about writing is that I think too much before writing. It is ironical because this is kind of related to my third strength that I mentioned above. Usually, thinking about the topic and spend time organizing my ideas are helpful; yet the problem is, I spend too much time to start writing. I always feel hard to start writing because I have too many ideas that are in mind.

     My second weak point in writing is similar to the first one: I find organizing my ideas difficult. I think it is because I usually start writing without any notes. So when I am writing about one topic, I come up with other ideas that could be unrelated to the topic.

     Finally, I find it hard to select appropriate words that could express my tone and my ideas exactly both in other languages in Korean. In case of writing in other languages, as I am not a native speaker of that country, I cannot know the exact equivalent for the word that I want to say. In case of Korean, it is easier than foreign languages but still sometimes I have to find the dictionary for the exact meaning of the vocabulary.

 

 

 

3. Describe your writing process:

     I usually put off an out-of-class writing assignment until the last minute. As I have to think about the topic for a long time, I cannot just start it and go on. Before writing, I organize my ideas while thinking, not writing, and then mostly write it down at one sitting. After I finish writing, I revise one time to check grammatical errors and the coherence as a whole. When I have some problems to finish writing assignment, I usually search on the internet. There are plenty of useful information on the internet where I can get help on a condition that I can tell helpful information from useless one.

 

4. In what ways do you hope your writing will improve by the end of this course:

     First, I hope I could write more quickly by the end of this course. It is because the main problem of my writing is that I spend too much time on thinking and organizing my ideas before writing it down. Second, I hope I could write more creative and interesting essay through this course. Sometimes I feel that my writing is not really impressive, though it is close to the correct answer. Lastly I hope that I could learn endurance during this course, because usually I put an effort to write introduction and then get tired to put such effort to conclude. A good writer cares about the beginning and the end at the same time. Therefore I need to practice for patience in writing as it says, "All is well that ends well"

 

5. What do you think will help you most to improve as a writer:

     The first thing that I suppose I need to practice is freewriting. I have a bad habit of writing in a one sitting. As this requires much thinking and writing at the same time, writing seems difficult and tiring for me now. Last time, I did freewriting in class, and that was far less burdensome. The second thing I should do is extensive reading. While reading books that are interesting to me, I can learn naturally the words and expressions that could be useful in writing. The last thing that I need is getting feedback from peers or teacher. Everyone has disparate opinions from each other. So, other students can give some advice that I could never think of or find out by myself.