Essay Sample on Writing: An Art Even Experienced Writers Struggle To Perfect

Writing is an art that even experienced writers struggle with even as they strive for perfection. There are many aspects of writing that one needs to keep in mind before sitting down to write. The writer should focus on the topic, sentence construction, grammar, punctuation, and the length of the paper. Some writers would struggle with punctuations, in that, they just guess where to place commas, colons, and semi-colons. Other writers struggle with the length of the paper, with the majority of them finding it difficult to hit the word count while others write more words that they are unable to reduce them. I have had struggles in using past tense, commas, and managing my word count as I find myself being too wordy, and this is what this paper will address. When writing, an individual should pay attention to the tense to be used, correct use of commas, as well as the word count required, but I occasionally find myself not adhering to the rules.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

The tense one chooses affects the tone and pace of the writing. In my writings, I have had difficulty using the past tense as I find it hard to decide where and how to use it. The past tense entails writing with a standpoint that the events being discussed happened sometime back and one is literally addressing past events. In my case, I always get confused as to when to use simple past, past perfect, past continuous, and past perfect continuous tense. Simple past tense describes the events that began and ended in the past, whereas past continuous tense describes events that were interrupted or occurred parallel to one another. On the other hand, the past perfect tense refers to an event that occurred in the past before the event one is discussing (Douglas, 2020). Lastly, the past perfect continuous tense refers to a consistent event that happened in the past. I have a problem coordinating all these tenses in my essay to have a smooth flow. I also struggle with the decision of when to use -d, -ed or -t on verbs to demonstrate their past tense. My struggle with past tense often affects my sentence construction and the overall grammar.

The other struggle I have in my writing is the use of punctuation marks, especially commas. Commas are important since they indicate the clustering of phrases, words, and clauses. Occasionally, commas are the most misused punctuation marks than the others. Commas are used arbitrarily, for separation of two parts in a sentence and to set off elements of a sentence (Hertzberg, 2018). Sometimes I found myself using commas to separate two clauses in a sentence, but forget to use a conjunction. Other times I fail to use commas after an introductory element in a sentence. While listing words in a sentence, I occasionally forget to put a comma after the last word before the conjunctions - and -or. Again when quoting a sentence, I get confused about whether to include or exclude the comma in the quotation marks.

Lastly, the other challenge I have had in writing is producing too long papers, and finding it difficult to reduce the word count. I like putting down every detail I deem significant for the topic in question. Apparently, I regard every piece of information about my subject relevant, and I have been learning how to select the piece of information that is most significant to my argument (Hertzberg, 2018). I have had a problem prioritizing the data that I gather, and thus I end up having more information than can be accommodated by the word count. I have, in the past, tried to review my information gathering techniques to concentrate on information that precisely focuses on the topic in question. I have tried to use the essay questions to guide my information selection, but I still end up with long essays.

Conclusion

Writers are required to focus on the tense they use, word limit, and punctuation marks, but I usually find myself violating rules concerning word limit, past tense, and the use of commas. Commas are my most misused punctuation marks as compared to the other punctuation marks. Additionally, I have struggled with managing my word count, but I still find myself writing longer essays. In my attempt to manage this problem, I try to use questions to guide my information gathering. Tenses provide another challenge in my writing journey, and I find the past tense more challenging than the rest. Writing is a process that is providing me with a chance to learn each day, and I am practicing so as to perfect my writing skills.

References

Douglas, H. (2020, Jan 30). Classroom grammar: The trouble with teaching tenses. https://prowritingaid.com/art/1135/how-to-teach-verb-tenses-in-writing.aspx

Hertzberg, K. (2018, Feb 9). This is how to correctly use commas in all of your writing. https://www.grammarly.com/blog/how-to-use-commas-in-your-writing/