When writing any type of work, especially an academic paper, it is not only crucially vital to have the ability to effectively cite your sources, but also hold the skill to write in an organized and clean manner. Without the ability to do so, your message can become skewed and unclear. Citing sources and inserting citations was never something that I really struggled with, but I do believe I have become even more knowledgeable and efficient in doing so. Provided down below is a snippet from my paper Technology: The Deafening Megaphone. In the first image, it’s clearly demonstrated that the author’s name begins at the beginning of the sentence, and that the page number of the quote is at the end. The paragraph is correctly formatted, as well as the header in the top right corner. Below the first picture shows my organized “Works Cited” page. Doing correct in text citations and accurate “Works Cited” pages are critical when properly crediting other’s work.
Along side proper crediting formats I have began to develop a strong sense of spelling/grammar, organization, and flow. In the third picture provided, the writer of the piece mistook a phrase, “I’ll be it,” for a word, “albeit.” While the two most certainly rhyme, the former doesn’t make sense, and the word “albeit” is a conjunction meaning “although.” Additionally, in pictures four and five, rather than the grammar and spelling I focus more on clarity and flow. As I’ve grown and written more it’s become easier to spot repetition/similarity in sentences; on top of that, I can offer solutions and provide examples of making it clearer and more concise. A good technique I’ve developed is reading my peers (as well as my own) paper’s out loud to check for flow, organization, and “correctness.” When I find something doesn’t sound quite right, I am not only able to point it out but offer solutions and/or explanations as to why I feel the way I do. Strengthening my ability to not only annotate as such, but actively practice putting integrating these skills has helped me become a better writer.
