Time is like a flowing river, and the year rolls by. While walking in the Cheshire
Academy schoolyard and watching the changing scenery, I remember my change during the past year and have a lot of feelings and ideas in my mind. Reviewing the past year, I have made progress in citation, writing thinking mode and blogs, creative stories and essays. Now, I would like to summarize what I harvested and learned over this past year.
Speaking of progress, citation technique which once troubled me the most should be mentioned first of all. In English writing, the correct citation is a problem that cannot be ignored. Improper citation is like a beautiful girl with shaved eyebrows, affecting our aesthetic appreciation of the entire writing. In the beginning of this year, I did have some weaknesses in citation. I did not know how to correctly cite literature, and how to properly make reference to researchers’ studies rather than plagiarising. Fortunately and gratefully, my teachers understand my plight. Mrs. Guarino gave me a lot of help, and Mrs. Hovasse spent one-on-one time improving my citation. Under their help and my efforts, I have made marked progress.
Another noteworthy progress is the change in the thinking mode of my writing. The mother-tongue thinking mode poses a certain impact on the English writing. In Chinese thinking mode, phrases and sentences are used to describe the purpose, time, place, cause, examples and conditions before expressing an opinion. Some examples can often be found in my previous blog. In a blog I posted in September 2014, I used a passage introducing the topic of this blog, as: “In this day and age, writing is become a main part of life, because it’s one way we represent our thought and ideas. We write on homework, test, paper and so on. Personally, I like writing so much, simply because writing can show my opinion to the readers adequately”. Reviewing this expression, I realize this is a typical Chinese thinking of writing: a more euphemistic way to elicit the topic. In my previous statements, I explain the importance of writing in life, and then express my personal attitudes and opinions towards writing. Sentence structure like this is very common in Chinese writing, which suggests the importance of the main point. However, after this year’s learning, I understand that English writing puts more emphasis on confronting the theme directly. Perhaps, a modification of this presentation can include more recognition of the native speakers. The original can be revised as: “writing is an effective way to reflect individual attitude, cognition and critical thought in our daily life. This is also an important reason why I have a strong passion for writing”.
I have gained experience in writing blogs, creative stories and essays, and I find my writing has improved significantly. On September 3, 2014, I posted my first blog, although it is just a quote. Now, my blog has substantial content and I feel writing blog is a pleasure. Looking back on the course of nearly a year to write blogs, it is more like long-distance running. In the starting phase, my momentum was overwhelming, and there were too many words I wanted to express. But after three months when the momentum had settled down, I entered a stage of difficulties and hardships. I call this stage an attitude sickness of writing when I did not know what to write and how to write. I pushed through this weary phase, and entered a relatively easy phase, which is my current stage. Now, I record the moments of life readily with writing knowledge and skills I have learned in the class. The creative stories I have written show more logic. Sometimes I think I am a little complacent with the style of writing I have formed.
To sum up, I think I have gained some significant progress in citation principles, writing thinking mode and blogs, creative stories and essays. Meanwhile, from correcting my mistakes and making progress, I have grown. Can the history of a person’s writing be considered as his or her spiritual history of life? I think the answer is yes. The course of my writing during this past year reflects my growth. I suddenly realize that this is the reason why I like writing because writing allows me to know who I am in a deeper more meaningful way.
