Critical Reflection - Essay Writing (Updated)

Writing essays used to be a breeze, back in my secondary school days. All I wrote then were narratives and personal recounts which do not require much variation in the tenses. Furthermore it was a style of writing that I was familiar with. However when it came to writing expository or argumentative essays, the different nuances of the language due to the uses of different tenses confused me greatly. It was only after taking the Qualifying English Test (QET) that I realized I had to do something about it.

After going through a few lessons of ES1102, I finally realized that I have been making many careless grammatical mistakes when writing. Several sessions of proofreading and conscientious checking showed that simple grammatical mistakes peppered the summaries and essays that I wrote for the module. The numerous drafts also made me more aware of such mistakes. As a result, I am paying more attention to the words used in my essay. Furthermore, my vocabulary has increased with the need to avoid repetition of words and that forces me to look up for alternative synonyms. However, there is still much room for improvement as I still tend to make plenty of errors while writing. One way to improve will be by asking a friend to proofread my essays as it can help me spot mistakes that I have missed. Reading more newspaper articles or books will also beneficial as it will allow me to see how different words are used in the expression of different ideas as well as the contrasting styles of writing. Thus, by learning to adapt them into my writing can give my essays more depth and variety.

Nevertheless, I believe that the essay writing skills that I have learnt from this module will be beneficial when I write reports or essays for my other modules as they help me to frame my sentences and thoughts in a more coherent manner, such that I can put my ideas across clearly.