I intend to continue improving my scholarly writing skills as a scholar. In this pursuit, I undertook a self- assessment on writing in which I intended to understand my confidence in writing, determine my writing strengths, as well as the common challenges that I experience in my writing. The writing self-assessment was based on honesty which is a basic foundation towards getting accurate and focused results. The responses to this assessment were authentic and helped in gauging my readiness to improve my scholarly.
Based on the outcomes of my writing self-assessment, I can acknowledge that I found that I have my own areas of strength in writing which I intend to build on in my improvement plan. One of the main areas of strength is that I remain focused on the main idea of my writing which is mostly well organized and with a grasp of the basic writing mechanics such as punctuation and grammar (Berge, 2016). I am also articulate in formatting my writing assignments with an overarching emphasis on proper use of grammar which is based on the fact that I proofread my writings as an important revision process before submitting the final draft.
I also have personal writing challenges such as failing to identify the source of my writing as well as failure to identify a good transitional arrangement of the writing in the introduction, body, and conclusion. It is important noting that I have challenges of failing to engage in a pre-writing exercise before starting my writing, determining the credible academic sources, as well as citing the sources correctly (Rocco & Hatcher, 2012). All the same, I use strong sources for my writing both in academic and in career writing and with the correct format.
Writing is important for me, and I intend to continue improving my writing based on the results of the writing self-assessment. In this regard, my writing improvement plan is based on building on my areas of strength as well as improving the weakness and challenge areas. Improving my grammar and identifying the transitional sections of my writing is critical in creating a mechanical coherence in my writing through which I will be able to construct my ideas and writing thoughts (Jalongo & Saracho, 2016). As a major area of concern, I will start planning my writing in smaller workable steps which start from pre-writing exercise in order to develop an outline of my writing before doing the actual writing.
Additionally, I need to improve my knowledge and skills in evaluating the credibility of sources to increase my writing efficiency. Studying the various types of writing will also help me to understand the application of the different concepts of writing in their specific academic requirements. In this regard, I plan to improve my understanding of the suitable language for scholarly writing which would help to incorporate my ideas together with the ideas of other scholars in my writing to give the writing a scholarly voice (Berge, 2016). As such, this will help me to be in a better position of writing in different disciplines. As an important element of scholarly writing, I will improve my knowledge on writing style and formatting to increase my effectiveness in writing.
- Berge A. (2016), The Academic Writer’s Toolkit: A User’s Manual, New York. Tailor & Francis Group.
- Jalongo M. & Saracho, O.N., (2016), Writing for Publication: Transitions and Tools that Support Scholars’ Success. Bloomberg. Springer International Publishing.
- Rocco T., Hatcher T.G., (2012), The Handbook of Scholarly Writing and Publishing, San John Wiley & Sons Inc. Publishing.