Take a step back for a moment from the literary content of this course, and consider instead the fact that it is an Advanced Composition class. Bracketing the frustrations of the particular assignment I've saddled you with, what kinds of more general problems in academic writing would you like to work on? What do you find particularly difficult when you write academic papers for your lit. courses? What writing skills do you feel like you need to develop further? When you start working on an academic writing assignment, was aspects of the task seem most daunting, even baffling?
Reflect here on your own writing process, and those aspects of it that you would like to work on improving.
Deadline: Friday (4/3), noon.
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As far as the writing itself, my biggest issue is writing a conclusion that doesn't sound like a lame restatement of the thesis along with a summation of the supporting points.
Another thing I have trouble with consistently is filling out the page requirements for assignments. Often, I feel I have said all I mean to say, but the assignment's page requirement seems to indicate I should have more to say.
I would have to agree with Ezra in that the conclusion is by far (for me) the hardest thing to write. It seems like the conclusion should do something different from what the paper just stated. It needs to be a summary as well as a reaching effort onto some sort of conclusion one has made. But i have trouble drawing conclusions because nothing i can say is going to be concrete--it still is all my interpretation. How do i make that distinction and still have a strong conclusion?
Secondly, I find it difficult to do the appropriate research and then write my interpretations. How much should be relied on critics versus how much should be my own interpretation? Where should i be drawing the line, and what is not sufficient enough (in terms of having critics' comments incorporated into my paper)?
Another aspect that I find hard is quote integration. I switch between trying to integrate it into sentences and having it separated. Also I have a hard time on deciding how much the text can speak for itself, and to what extent I need to explain it. I always end up either not going into enough detail with a quote, or going to such an extent that it becomes redundant.
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