I selected WRTG 101 because it was a required class towards my undergraduate degree. This is a class that I should have taken earlier in my pursuit of my degree; it would have been extremely beneficial to me with my writing assignments for other classes. Being a student of WRTG 101 employs me to use my critical thinking skills in conjunction to my writing skills. Prior to taking this class, I thought that my writing skills were above average; however this class has provided instruction and feedback that I needed improvement in several areas.
Each Monday, I would log into UMUC. om to read the Course Content/Alerts to see what the status of my progress. An example is: the number of unread discussion posts, one assignment with unread feedback and one quiz or exam not attempted. The next section that I look at t=is the Content page which provides me with the coming week’s assignments. I copy and paste this t=in an email to myself so that I have a frame of reference to check throughout the week when I am not able to log into UMUC. This section was very beneficial to me because it allows me to or automatically checks off the assignments that I have completed or read.
The assignments consisted of reading, tutorials, Comfit, and the required writing assignment for that week. I knew that I had some problem areas: the proper use of quotation marks with other punctuation, using commas with independent clauses, and using commas with restrictive clauses. Unfortunately, these are going to be areas that I still struggle in and as soon as the fall semester is over, I am going to do more self-study. Another area of study that was extremely beneficial to me was the use of active voices vs. the passive voice. I discovered that I wrote in the passive voice often.
My writing tends to be quite wordy; I had come to this realization before taking WRTG 101, however I did not attribute it to my writing in the passive voice. The use of the online resources were very instrumental and prior to this class, I had nerve heard of www. grammerly. com, www. comfit. com and www. paperrater. com. It is amazing how far online technology has come since I started college many years ago. In this day and age of online classes, it is imperative to have these types of resources available to online and traditional classroom learning.
I was a wee bit intimidated, initially. Comfit. om is an online learning center that focuses on reading, writing and math and offers an assessment center, practice tests, and mini lessons. It is very interactive and provides detailed instruction as well as providing a grade instantaneously. Comfit. com provided me with the opportunity to track my progress. Grammarly. com, an instant grammar checker, is another online resource that I have never used prior to this class. Grammarly. com acts an online word processor but to the tenth degree and is touted as the best online paper. This resource will check for grammar mistakes, word choices, and detect plagiarism.
Quite often, my writing is not very clear or my word choice is not satisfactory, and Grammarly. com will point out and offer areas of my paper that need improvement. Grammarly’s tag line is that “Grammarly is the world’s most accurate grammar checker. ” (Grammarly. com). Paperrater. com is another online resource that serves as a basic online proofreader and it will check grammar and spelling. Before this class, my go to has always been Google. com, but for the purposes of this class, I used the recommended online resources. One of my challenges that I have a better understanding of now is the use of quotation marks with punctuation.
Comfit. com was very instrumental in understanding what the rules are. When using quotation marks with periods, it goes outside of the period and this rule I have always understood. Using quotation marks with colons and semi colons, the quotation marks go outside. I never knew about the British English version where the marks is dependent on the logic of the sentence. With question marks and exclamation marks, the quotation marks usually go on the inside. These are the most common uses of the rules of when and how to use quotation marks and this course helped me to develop this area of my writing skills.
The use of the video and library tutorials was an excellent source of instruction due to the use of being interaction. If I found a subject to be very challenging for me, I could watch and listen to the video while making notes. If necessary, I would listen to the audio while I was preparing a meal, loading the dishwasher or anything else that required my moving away from my laptop. It is effective as listening to audio books and although I am a visual person, this proved to be very effective. There is research or discussion about the use of tutorials and if this form of learning is effective.
According to several pieces of research, tutorials actually are helpful in teaching. ” (Roys, J. ) Week number two of this class focused on the introduction to college writing skills and how academia employs critical thinking skills, will teach us about the writing process and a chance to learn the ways of writing. This class has definitely taught me the use of my critical thinking skills as it relates to writing. I now think about the message I am trying to convey, if it is clear and concise, as well as looking at the proper use of grammar and punctuation.
I still require self-study in certain areas and I will still need to refer to my materials for improving my writing skills. I have shown some improvement in the use of commas with restrictive clauses, ((67, 33, 67, 67, 67, 67, 100). Another area that I’ve shown some improvement is Inside or outside placement for quotation marks; my scores were rather low (40, 40, 40, 60, 100). Although my final score was 100 in each of these two areas, I need further instruction. This class has provided me with excellent instruction in improving my writing skills and has also provided me with feedback in areas that I need to improve on.
