Please use academic writing and grammar issues to edit my text, thank you.
As non native English who had just moved to the country I had to deal with different sort of issues including learning how to write and read English. ESL 6 was my last challenge sitting next to people who had the same issues as I had. At the beginning of the semester I felt some new challenges but I was able to meet the challenge afterwards. Throughout the semester I had given three individual types of essays including: Critical analysis, explanatory synthesis and an argumentative synthesis, along with a timed essay at the end of the semester. I strongly believe that ESL Vl helped me tremendously grow and develop my writing, perception and literature skills as a writer and prepared me for the big challenge of composition.
The first essay I was required to write was a Critical Analysis essay. In this task I had to critique the essay "The Untouchables" written by Thomas Friedman. In my essay, I tried to critique Friedman's ideas by discussing about how he exaggerates when explaining about the new technology and future. I also claimed that he had not enough evidence to support his ideas. Of course I agreed with his main argument but I felt there are holes which need to filled. Due to the professor's comments below my first draft, I noticed that this essay needs some improvement in order to meet the requirements of a critical analysis essay. I reduced my introduction to a short summary along with the main points of the article. I ameliorated the body of my essay by providing more support for my claims. Therefore I believe was able to write a good and efficient essay, and learned how to find the key points of an article in order to critique its writer's work in different ways.
Furthermore, for my second paper, I had given a task to write an explanatory synthesis essay about the common issue of the world "Sleep Deprivation" using multiple sources. It was kind of a bigger challenge for me to write such an essay. I felt I need to work harder on this paper overcome this obstacle. Finding multiple sources was the simple part to begin with. Besides, I had to make sure that all the sources are claiming the same idea. I started my essay with a massive description about Sleep Deprivation and its consequences providing support from each sources in my introduction, but I was completely going in the wrong path. After the first draft I realized that I had done the same mistake of long useless introduction again, plus this time, I even used quotes! Thus, I started to reduce the introduction, take the quotes off and place them into the body of my essay. Then I could see a short and efficient introduction consisted with a general idea about Sleep Deprivation. I also changed few grammar issues in the body. I could easily conclude that I had done a good job in my own opinion, yet needed more practice and improvement to become a better synthesis writer.
Moreover and as the final essay of the semester I met an even bigger challenge than the last two ones. Argumentative Synthesis was the style of my third essay and I had to choose a narrow and controversial subject. I chose the topic of "Divorce and Children" as I had personally experienced a life of a divorced child and had lots to say in this essay. Again, I needed to use multiple sources to prove my ideas so that was the first thing to begin with. Then I made my claims and started the essay with discussing a general idea of divorce and its affect on children. I inscribed my body using the claims that I had made before and tried to provide as much support as I could to prove them. After I was given back the first draft I noticed that there are some parts of the essay which needs more consideration, including my thesis and the third paragraph. The paragraph is now changed again with better ideas and more support and I also reduced the thesis in order to avoid repetition. I can tell that this was my favorite essay throughout the semester because as I said, I had many words to write and this was my chance. I also learned how to write an argument using different sources and gained much more info from the sources that I found.
Overall, I feel I have definitely learned many things in this semester and have the sense of being prepared for composition. I learned how to describe and elaborate efficiently and how to prove different claims using credible sources. I was able to learn many academic words and use them in my essays and different tasks in the future. The three essays made me force me to sit down and research over the internet and different information places. I will be developing the skills I absorbed to the very top and hope to obtain more and more knowledge in life.
