Blog #6 by Shiqi

I like writing in my first language. However, it still bothers me when it becomes assignment of exams. In China, I only write diaries and blogs except those asked by teachers. So I'm not familiar with writing skills and format. But at the same time, I do believe that writing is the best way to express feelings and excellent experience. I was definitely poor in second-language writing including every foreign language I've learned, such as English, Spanish and French. I have no idea how to organize my thoughts and how to present my ideas precisely and comprehensively. What frustrates me more is the grammar points and vocabulary. All aspects of English writing seemed difficult to me that time. However, things are different now, after taking writing courses, I gradually have some basic ideas and how to write in English. Let me use digital story for example, firstly I wrote a outline, then I expand the whole story according to my outline, and the last step is to revise several times. Other students' comments sometimes do help me revise with the logical problem and improve my work more fun facts. What's more, I got the concept of plagiarism through the course. By discussing some articles and working on several summaries, I knew exactly what is plagiarism and how to avoid it. Even though I still forget to cite or quote sometimes, but at least I start to improve. The last but not least, I still need to work on is improving paraphrasing skills, which means more exercises on changing words and structures. In conclusion, writing is a hard task for me so far, but I have improved and I will do better in the future.