Sunday, August 31, 2014

"Skills to be Learned"

          Of the listed skills, the one that I am probably the least familiar with is the MLA formatting/citations and the like. Now, obviously, I know how to post citations themselves, and I know the reason that they're necessary, but overall, I'm not too experienced with actually using them due to not having to write all too many essays in school. Another issue that arises from that section, is that I don't even own Microsoft Word. For whatever reason, my computer didn't come with it installed, so I've had to just use OpenOffice instead, as it's free.
          I suppose another area where I lack experience is in critiquing others' work, as I was home-schooled from my freshman year of high school onwards. The reasons behind that are various, but it boils down to the school that I live in the district for being less than stellar. Anyway, due to being home-schooled, the opportunities for me to actually look at the work of other students were slim at best, for reasons I believe are somewhat obvious.
          Next on the list, is probably C, "Compose an effectively organized essay that focuses on a clear purpose and develops major points that support it's main idea(s) in reasonable effective ways." I've always had issues with finding a way to properly end off an essay, either that, or I accidentally make it go for too long because I get slightly off topic and can't find a proper transition to use to get back on topic. The reason for this is probably at least partially because I don't like to talk in front of people too much, so I tend to ramble on with writing in place of it, or something along those lines. As for why I want to improve, it's lost me points on papers a couple of times, and for such a stupid and easily resolved reason, I think it'd be odd if I didn't want to.
         I guess for the final one, it'd have to be letter B. When it comes to the whole 'writing process' with planning, drafting, and so on, I've never really been all too enthusiastic about it, because I've always thought it was somewhat annoying. Obviously necessary, but still annoying and bothersome, since, unless it was required, I've always had the bad habit of jumping headfirst into a paper with not too much planning, and editing and revising as I go along. A terrible habit, I know, but it's one I've got because I'm very impatient with things and dislike it taking more than a week or so to actively finish a paper.
         So, there you have it. The areas, in order, that I believe need work more so than others with my writing. Apologies if it's a bit longer than requested since as I've said, I'm not the best at actually limiting my words.