What is a "good" paper?

• Word choice/Vocabulary - There is a major difference between the word choice of an A paper and a C paper. In a C or average paper, the word choice that the writer uses will be very simple with a few college level words or vocabulary. The paper would be seem either like a high school student wrote the paper or that the person just used Microsoft thesaurus option and changed some of his/her words to make it seems like they have a higher vocabulary or word choice. In contrast an A paper or an excellent paper, the writer will almost always will use college level words or vocabulary. You can see the writer has a well expanded vocabulary and knows the meanings of those words and when/how to use them. Also word choice also have an effect of the description in the essay but I will talk about that in the next quality.
• Vivid description - Another difference between an A paper and a C paper is the kind of description the writer uses. In a C paper, the writer will use simple words that won't recreate the image, situation or event the writer wants the reader to imagine. An example of the description used in the C paper is "I ran to the front door and as I got to the door, I got tired." The words that the writer uses wont have the effect that the writer was looking for. Compare to an A paper, the writer of the A paper will have a vivid description of the image, situation or event they want to recreate for the reader. An example of the description for the same sentence is "I rushed to the front door, sweating running down my face and to my neck and when I got to the door, I was out of breath like if I ran for miles." The word choice that the writer of a C paper won't have the vivid description compare to an A paper.
• Clarity of the essay - One of the biggest difference between the average paper (C paper) and an excellent paper (A paper) is the clarity of the paper. An average paper will typically be clear and will flow from paragraph to paragraph but there will be points in the paper where the writer goes off topic. When the writer goes off topic, it makes the paper more confusing and less unclear for the reader about what the writer is talking about. Compare to an excellent paper, the writer never goes off topic. The reader will understand what the writer is talking about. The paper will flow from paragraph to paragraph.

Between these three qualities, the easiest for me is having vivid description in my papers. When I am going to describe something, I always use words that paint the picture that I want my readers to see. Without the writer helping the reader to pain a picture, the reader will paint a different picture than what the writer wanted the reader to have. I also think about my word choice for when I am going to paint a picture for my readers as well so that is why having vivid description in my papers is the easiest quality for me.

The hardest quality is making sure that my papers are clear for my readers. In all of the papers I have ever written, I always repeat many things I have already talked about before hand which makes my papers confusing for my professors and longer than what they should be. I always try to make sure that I don't repeat myself but no matter how hard I try, I always repeat myself  and I also sometimes get off topic as well because I repeat myself. I don't see myself repeating until my tutor or professor points it out for me. So because of this and other reason, making my papers clear for my readers is the hardest quality for me.

Topics for Literacy Narrative (blog assignment #2)

One of my topic that I can write about for my literacy narrative is my poetry project I did in seventh grade. For my poetry project, I had to write five different types of poems relating to a feeling. The feeling I chose was love. This project was significant because since that day, I love writing poetry. Poetry has become a hobby of mine and in the future, I hope that I can get a book publish fill with my poems. Also this is was the first time where I got into writing.

I could write an effective literacy narrative on this topic because this was the first moment where I got into writing and into poetry. It spark my interest in learning the different ways of expressing one own feelings and my interest into the different ways of writing poetry. It was very significant to me and who I became today. The cons of this topic as my literacy narrative is that I don't remember a lot of detail information from when I did the project except for the different types of poems I wrote and my process for the project and I need to convey how this project lead me to loving poetry, writing poetry and help me become who I am today.

Another topic is the final paper I wrote for multicultural literature class. For this paper, I had to compare and contrast any two books that I read for the class. The books I chose were The Road of Lost Innocence by Somaly Mam and Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. In my paper, I explain how these books had similar meanings behind them, express similar messages and were written for the same reason, but are about two different cultures and were written from two different authors, This paper showed me that no matter where you are from and who you are, we are all the same. We all feel the same feelings and there is no difference between us if we don't look at religion, culture, skin color or ideas. We are all human beings.

This topic could be a effective literacy narrative because this was the first educational writing where I enjoy writing the paper. This assignment showed me that I can write a educational essay if I choose the right topic to write about. Before this, I didn't enjoy writing at all because I never had a topic that I liked or a topic that related to me. With this topic, I feel like people can relate to me because we all have dealt with disliking to write for a reason or another but at the end, almost everyone likes to write. The only con with this topic is that I need to talk about the process I took with my paper and explain why I enjoyed writing this paper.

Other than the two previous topics, I could use the time when I started reading the American Chillers series novels. When I was young, I didn't read a lot. I only read in class or for homework. I didn't spend majority of my time reading novels. There was no novels that peak my interest until I started reading the American Chillers series. The genre for this series is fiction, but can be put into sci-fi as well due to the novels had sci-fi characteristics. From that point on, I started to read much more. Every time I read, I was reading either a fiction or sci-fi novel. From reading the American Chillers series, I began to read outside of school. To this day, my favorite genre of books are fiction and sci-fi because I love science and I believe in things that at this point don't exist or are myths.

The pros for this being my topic for my literacy narrative is that it tells how fiction and sci-fi became my favorite genres for novels, how I went a child who didn't like to read to someone who loves to read (when I have a novel that peaks my interest and/or when I have free time) and how I overcame the obstacle of not loving to read novels. Also this topic is relatable to everyone because everyone who reads novels have a reason why they read and everyone has their own favorite genre(s). The cons are that the story might not be interesting to people because some people don't want to read an essay about why someone loves to read books and I don't know how I can make this essay vivid and descriptive for my audience unless I talk about the first American Chiller novel I read and give quotes from the novel. This topic to me would be boring for my audience because if I can't make it vivid and descriptive, the essay would be about why I love to read now and what pushed me down this path, which wouldn't be enjoyable to my audience.

Blog Assignment #1

There are two reasons why I am taking Writing 101. The first is because Writing 101 is a requirement at NEIU for all students to complete this course. The reason why NEIU is asking all of their students to complete this course because in college and in everyday life, we are going to read no matter what. We are going to do research papers, essays, blogs, poems, writing emails or even write a novel. With writing, we all need to know the rules of writing and how to write a well educated and professional writing document. That is the reason why I believe NEIU makes Writing 101 a requirement for all of their students.

The other reason why I am taking this course is because I need to improve my writing skill. Throughout my whole education career, my professors have all told me that I have excellent ideas for my papers, I have great organizing skill and my paper always flow from paragraph to paragraph. What I need to work is knowing how to revision my papers better, how to use more educational/college vocabulary in my papers, to not make common mistakes with my sentences and to make sure that I don't repeat items in my essays. So hopefully by the end of this course, I will have improve with the writing skills that I need help with and maybe improve the writing skills I already have a good grasp with. This is my personal reason for taking Writing 101 as well as that Writing 101 is a requirement at NEIU.