Assignment 1 - STATEMENT OF GOALS

I think that the best way in which I can polish my (essay) writing skills, is by making shorter and more concise sentences. That way it will be easier to get my point across to the reader. Maybe, when I write a draft I should get rid of superfluous words, which tend to give the sentence(s) a vague meaning. So by the time it comes to my final draft, the language will start to flow and the ideas I pose in the essay, will lead to an increased sense of awareness and clarity. Once I manage to write proper (supporting) sentences within each paragraph, my next step will be to give emphasis to proofreading my essay. This is something that I often fall back on. I invest too much time on creativity and developing the concepts central to each paragraph’s topic sentence, but not enough on revising or proofreading the essay as a whole. Furthermore, it might be better, were I to write an essay consisting of five paragraphs when not being pressed for time, so that each body paragraph will be able to represent an argument of its own in a distinct manner.

On a more positive note, I feel that I am competent in using expressions which grab the reader’s attention and provide an interesting note to the story. I have trained myself to write out a simple plan, which acts as the backbone of my essay. My conclusion usually consists of a memorable message, and I rarely make spelling or grammatical mistakes. Whenever I am assigned with an essay, I research the subject of discussion, in great detail. I hope that this class will teach me how to organize my thoughts on a particular subject matter (of a given text), into the structure of a purposeful essay. There are certain essay writing techniques which I would like to delve deeper into. Most importantly, I think it would be a good idea for me to learn how to identify crucial themes, employ my powers of critique, distinguish between the thesis and its supporting arguments ; and finally, be objective when addressing the question(s) / issue(s) set by a certain author or literary text to its readers.