The purpose of this paper is to discuss new insights on the topic of my personal narrative and what I have learned from essay writing. Writing evaluation performance report is not usually a simple task, therefore, for quite some time have been required to provide one in the air force I have experienced difficulties (Knox et al., 2010). However, WRTG 101 has greatly assisted me with various writing skills. My skills have improved; I am able to write things that are relevant to the topic, the most crucial part of learning is the application of writing methods for creating essays.
What is learnt in WRTG 101
To begin with, I learned how to develop essays through use of various rhetorical patterns. Secondly, I learned how to do a critical analysis on a topic and write persuasively. Through WRTG 101, I was able to use and find relevant sources on my work and the capability to integrate findings from various sources and summarize them in a way that they make sense on the topic (Allan et al., 2015). I also learned how to analyze and understand the previous papers and made a lot of practices which helped me improve the speed quality without plagiarizing the work.
Revised Narrative
Writing annual report within the air force of USA was quite challenging. There was specific guideline from the supervisor, base and air force guidelines that needed to be followed. However, the recent report I wrote for my assistant employees were constructive and rewarding although they were most challenging. Never the less the previous challenge that I encountered while writing these reports is to follow the set format by the air force that requires me to present each annual employee performance in fifteen sentences. As the supervisor, I needed to indicate whether the results were being achieved by every employee. I was supposed to provide information on the use and allocation of resources to every employee. However, I was to keep in mind that this report will be useful in the future decision making of the air force since there was a need to meet annual performance goals set. Moreover, I also carried the task of rating them and ensuring that they perform in the base I am assigned.
In Kadena Air Base is one of the most engaging bases have ever experienced throughout my career. Their guidelines were tough and they are strict on tasks and their performances. Therefore, much was expected in the performance evaluation report by the executives, hence meeting their expectations was a great challenge (Leland, 2010). It required creativity as members of the Airforce referred it as the creative writing. However, WRTG 101 helped me much to bring out clear, informative and specific sentences that capture all the performance and significant details of each employee. Additionally, the executive who reviews the written performance evaluations always gives feedback that I use to correct mistakes and remove errors hence improving my writing skills. I took some time to learn about better practices and put them to practice in writing another evaluation reports. I tried to gain expertise through several discussions with my supervisors and learning from the previous mistakes hence I was able to overcome the fear that came with preparing those performance reports. Initial failures of writing reports that ate not to standard welcomed a learning experience which brought out good and positive results.
The numerous expectations and guidelines that were in the Air Force when writing performance evaluation reports were one of the struggles and challenges I experienced in my job in the air force. However, with the experiences in the air force on writing reports encouraged me to continue studying in the WRTG 101 that would help me in forming and developing concise sentences. Moreover, writing these reports over the years with the changing expectations will always remain a challenge. Through the experience at Air Force I have believed that in mastering a skill, failure is important as through the corrections I will become more constructive. Finally, although there is fear that comes along with preparing evaluation reports, however, next one I have no doubt that I will prepare it to the best of my capacity.
Conclusion
To conclude, I can say WRTG 101 has helped me much improve my writing skills especially in the Air force where I was required to write annual reports on employee’s performance. Regardless of the challenges I initially experienced in the process of writing, now I can boldly say writing is not as difficult as it seemed. WRTG 101 has helped a lot in mastering different writing techniques that I will use in future reports. However, the fear that I was experiencing in the previous reports diminished and I felt more competent. Although the expectations of my supervisors keep on changing, am sure I will not have a hard time in producing best evaluation reports.
Explanations on the revisions
Introduction
Sometimes I am attached to what I write, although other times some reasons contribute to finding hard to revise some work I have done, for instance sometimes because of time, the work requires major amendments among many more. However, according to Ferris (2010), some works are worthy an extra effort since one want to be better tomorrow than today, however, according to studies made, to be the best writer is to learn to rewrite again using the corrections given by the supervisor. Through that, the writing skills will be enhanced and the reading and analytical skills as well (Enos, 2010). Through the revisions I make I learn to find my weaknesses in my work and strengthen my argument. Thus this paper will discuss the corrections made and the reasons why they were made.
Corrections Made and their Reasons
To begin with, I proofread my work to ensure that I eliminate all the common mistakes, punctuation errors and spelling errors. Secondly, I edited the work, to simplify the sentences such that repetition will not occur. Also, I did editing on some arguments to make them clearer and also to clarify them such that my supervisor will get the information I was passing.
Bitchener (2 012), articulates that through editing also, one can be able to eliminate run-ons, hence simplifying the sentences. Thus, editing ensures that what has written is readable, has a flow, and is clear and concise. I also rewrote the third paragraph to make it simpler and clear; I eliminated vague sentences and simplified the structure of some of the sentences. I also ensured that the paragraphs are coherent internally and externally, meaning adequate transitions are from one paragraph to another. Through editing I was able to reconsider my arguments and their logic, meaning I was after ensuring that every argument is convincing and evidence them appropriately. Nevertheless, through revising I was able to make major improvements on the paper as I incorporated writing tips I had learned from WRTG 101 (Allan et al., 2015). I wanted to ensure that the reader will get what was expected from the paper, by writing short sentences which bring out the ideas clearly. Thus, I worked on the run- on which I found on the paper and tend to obscure ideas. I also checked on the level of paragraphs that should include the topic sentence
Conclusion
To conclude editing is important as it assists in correcting errors and rewriting sentences to clarify them. Also to confirm that it makes sense and serve the purpose as outlined in the introduction and confirm that is an accurate topic sentence. I also added keywords on the work to form a relationship between paragraphs. Finally, it is considered perfect to go through what I have done over and over again to ensure that the assignment is well fulfilled and the work meets the expectations of my supervisor.
References
Allan, E. G., Driscoll, D. L., Hammontree, D. R., Kitchens, M., " Ostergaard, L. (2015). The Source of Our Ethos: Using Evidence-Based Practices to Affect a Program-Wide Shift from" I Think" to" We Know". In Composition Forum (Vol. 32). Association of Teachers of Advanced Composition.
Bitchener, J. (2012). A reflection on ‘the language learning potential’of written CF. Journal of Second Language Writing, 21(4), 348-363.
Enos, M. F. (2010). Instructional interventions for improving proofreading and editing skills of college students. Business Communication Quarterly, 73(3), 265-281.
Ferris, D. R. (2010). Second language writing research and written corrective feedback in SLA: Intersections and practical applications. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 32(2), 181-201.
Knox, K. L., Pflanz, S., Talcott, G. W., Campise, R. L., Lavigne, J. E., Bajorska, A., ... " Caine, E. D. (2010). The US Air Force suicide prevention program: implications for public health policy. American journal of public health, 100(12), 2457-2463.
Leland, A. (2010). American war and military operations casualties: Lists and statistics. DIANE Publishing.
