Writing

4 semester

Essay: The New Old

This Essay was for my class of English Mastery. It was to provide an Argument based on the reading of Coates' Between the World and Me and his article The Case for Reparations, Alexander's The New Jim Crow, and the documentary 13th. 

I believe this artefact is a valuable contribution since it was fairly extensive, 8 pages.  It was informed reaction to readings and problems discussed in the class. 

I struggled with this essay immensely. It was the most extensive work I have written so far and the topic was very hard for me. We had to include citations from all the materials supporting our argument and then produce out own, evidence-based opinion. 

In the end, my work was evaluated as a good, but with a room for an improvement. In my conclusion, I did a grammar mistake which changed the intended meaning, which is something that should be eliminated by the proofreading. 

Essay attached. 

Article submitted on 15.4.2017

Response paper, American History

In order to be eligible for the exams in Masaryk Uni whilst on Erasmus stay, I had to write around 3 response papers weekly.  Response paper was a new writing style for me, therefore I feel it is a valuable contribution. 

All the response papers were evaluated as good. I myself was very confused at the beginning since I had no idea what should the response paper consist of. I had to draw line between personal opinions and facts actually stated in the reading. 

I believe these writing are valuable since they show my ability in distinguishing between important information and ballast of no real value. As the semester progressed I feel I grasped the response papers well and managed to do them better and better.  

Included is an example paper for American History

Article submitted on 15.4.2017

3rd Semester

Essay: Is tourism a good thing?

Why I chose this piece of writing? It is a more extensive work and shows how well I cope with longer texts. It is also the corrected version, so there are not so many mistakes. 

How would I evaluate this piece of writing? It is not the best I have written, but certainly not the worst one. The things I have corrected were few missing articles, several wrongly placed or used sentences and misused words. The feedback was very valuable since I realized that even though I am satisfied with my writing, I should re-read it a few days later when I have forgotten what I have written. Only then will I realize that some sentences sound weird or inappropriate. There is clearly visible that my writing could use an improvement, but I can only rely on things assigned to us by teachers. Yes, I could write something on my own, but I could hardly seek anyone to do the evaluation for me. 

Here is the completed essay:

Article submitted on 28.10.206

Discussion forum: Dark Ages

This is my contribution to the British History class: 

There are several theories on why were the Middle Ages called Dark Ages. I myself believe that the reason behind the "Dark Ages" is simply a lack of information.

We simply do not have enough information to put together a comprehensive picture of what it looked like during the Anglo-Saxon rule. Either the records do not exist at all, or they exist but are false or incomplete -record written about something that had happened years ago. It might have been because the invaders - Anglos and Saxons were illiterate. When the Romans were forced to retreat back, they left Britons to their destiny. The Britons could not defend themselves from the Germanic tribes and their cultural development slowed.

Nowadays, the historians do not really like the name " Dark Ages" since it denotes era of wars, and diseases, and that is, at leas in my opinion, not the case of the Middle Ages." 

Why have I chosen this particular contribution? It is a clear example of my writing. Forums are great at one thing. Students - in this case, I usually get familiar with the topic and then try to form their own opinion. Once I have one, I need to write it down. It reflects how I write and try to express my opinions. 

It is clearly visible that my writing needs improvement. There is a repetition of words, and sometimes poorly constructed sentences. I am not particularly proud of this contribution. But it is only fair to show that I am not an expert on writing. If I should evaluate this whole piece, I would say that average high school student could write this. 

Article submitted on 15.10.2016

1 and 2 semester

Online Shopping

I am not fond of writing, and I consider it to be my weak spot. I can write comprehensively, and people usually understand what I want to say, but it is just too much effort to compose sentences and think of their importance. When I write anything longer, it is just because my school assigned me to, I am not writing because I would want to. Of course, I do not count e-mails to this matter, because I correspond with people a lot and it is often in English, but it is me expressing myself on topic I am interested in, not something I have to do.

For my first artifact, I chose my Essay to Practical Language concerning online shopping. I wrote this essay on 23.4.2016.

I think this essay reflects how well I can use acquired vocabulary and how I am able to compose sentences. Writing essays is really hard for me, I do have a range of words I would like to use, but I am not familiar with them and thus I tend to write using simple vocabulary instead. Hopefully, this essay shows that I can hold a thought and I can develop it accordingly to my level of English. 

Mobile Phone Addiction 

The second and shorter artifact is my forum contribution from the 24.4.2016. I like those more not just because they are shorter, but because I do not have to think about complex sentences and I mainly state the most important points and I do not bother with fancy expressions. 

I would not consider myself an addict, but I use my phone quite frequently. The main reason why I do not call myself an addict is that because when I am at home and I do not have my phone somewhere near, I simply do not care. It is different when I am in Brno (for you to understand, the rest of my family is in Hradec Králové and there is my home) where it is an absolute must to be accessible via mobile phone. For one thing, my mum wouldn´t probably survive not knowing if I am ok and for another thing, when we need to solve something, we need to do it via phone.
Otherwise, I try to find an alternative - for the time I am wearing a watch, for music I have an mp3 and for reading I have a kindle, thus my face does not have to be glued to the screen of my phone all the time. 

I think those contributions really reflect my true style of writing. When I write those, I usually spend few minutes thinking about my opinion and how would I like to express it. Then, I just sit to the computer and write whatever comes to my mind. 

I know that if I want to achieve a decent level of writing, I need to work on that a lot. I signed up for a special course and I really do every assignment we are supposed to. Hopefully, it will have results soon. 

Contributions submitted on the 10.5.2016