Reflection on Instructor’s Comments Regarding my Paper

Reflection on Instructor’s Comments Regarding my Paper

The instructor pointed out that my thesis statement was good. A thesis statement guides the rest of the paper. It appears as the last line in the introductory paragraph and guides the body. The body is an explanation supporting the thesis statement idea using facts. My thesis statement was well drafted and presented. Another thing is that I was able to use the MLA style effectively at the opening of the paper with all the details included. The style creates an inviting reading experience to whoever gets a chance to read my paper.

A major area that my instructor pointed out that I am not strong is pronoun agreement. I seem to mix singular nouns and plural pronouns whereas a singular noun requires a singular pronoun. I agree this aspect appears regularly throughout the paper. I have identified a website that has tutorials that will help me understand the noun and pronoun agreement rule. I have been going through the tutorials at http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/exercisecentral/Tutorials/PronounAntecedentAgreement for thirty minutes daily to master the rule. I will continue working on the tutorials until I am good enough to teach and help someone who might have the same problem.

Another area that I need to improve on is the use of facts to support the thesis statement. Some of my paragraphs do not seem to have any relation with the thesis statement as my instructor pointed out. I have identified a pdf to help me with this issue and I have learnt that every paragraph should support the thesis statement. In addition, the order of the paragraphs should be guided by the order of ideas in the thesis statement. I have dedicated thirty minutes of my time daily in learning about developing thesis statements for different assignments.

Another major area of concern is the balancing of paragraphs. As my instructor pointed out, some of my paragraphs are big while others are small. I thought that every idea should be in a separate paragraph meaning that the information I have about an idea determines the length of its paragraph. I have identified the website https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/606/02/ where I have learnt that though ideas should be presented in separate paragraphs, short paragraphs can be part of a larger paragraph. In addition, paragraphs should be proportional to the paper. A short paper should have short paragraphs while a lengthy paper should have larger paragraphs.

I have dedicated two hours of my day to working on my improvement areas. Currently I have improved on pronoun agreement as well paragraph balancing though I am not at the level I want to be. I have not been able to master the thesis statement agreement with the body paragraphs partially because I have not yet managed to write a full paper to prove myself improved. I am still researching on other improvement areas such as punctuations and proper referencing. My plan is to find a colleague with the same problem in future and try to explain to them how some of these rules apply. By doing so I will identify whether I have mastered the rules.

 

Work Cited

“Tutorials.” PronounAntecedentAgreement. Web. 29 Feb. 2016. <http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/exercisecentral/Tutorials/PronounAntecedentAgreement>.

“The Body of Your Paper.” The Body of Your Paper. Web. 29 Feb. 2016. <http://facweb.furman.edu/~moakes/Powerwrite/body.htm>.

“Welcome to the Purdue OWL.” Purdue OWL: Paragraphs and Paragraphing. 1 Mar. 2013. Web. 29 Feb. 2016. <https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/606/02/>.

 

 

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