Reflective Essay

Into Mason department has a pathway program which is a particular academic program
helps international students to prepare well for their academic level at George Mason
University. This program has two courses these required from all students 1- PROV 502 2- EAP
507. Last reflect essay was about the PROV today it is good to reflect my experience in the EAP
507 which is plays a role in academic writing specifically. EAP 507 drives students to improve
their skills in writing through different strategies. There are four of the most significant
strategies in the track of improving writing skills reading, analyzing, summarizing and citation.
Those skills can promote students’ abilities to achieve their goals in academic writing during
their graduate studies.
First, reading is one of the practical factors in writing, if the author read more that will refine
his skills in writing. This concept depends on that knowledge which the reader reads could be
reflected in his writing. As well as, when the reader reads an article he can observe the tone of
the other writer and the structure of the material. Nevertheless, when I read I understand the
other writers writing strategies and methodologies, those support me to write better. Instead
of study more authoring techniques reading for others is helpful too, as well as, the new
information which I read can add more to my knowledge.
Second, analyzing is a helpful technique which assists authors to understand a material and
do a simulation of the rhetorical elements and the schemes of information flowing. This
concept looks like just as useful in reading understanding but actually I found it helpful in
writing precisely with us as international students, because that give us I evident plan of how
the English writers do and build their articles. When I analyze article, I understand how the
author built his thoughts. For that reason, now I have a literature review I have to write it I am
not worried about it because I already analyzed several articles and absorbed the strategies of
writing reviews.
Third, summarizing is a significant skill helps students to write a brief essay about any long
article. This way of introducing the topics in a short way helps me to understand the
summarized article without reading the original text. In summary, always the summarizer ends
to write basic concepts in a topic, the main rhetorical elements in the article, the main findings
of the article and brief conclusion. Also, in some cases, the writer explains the pattern of the
authoring language and the level of the author confidence in his citations. I had learned from
this theme how to introduce my thoughts and support them by citation through my stance of
the borrowed information. Also, summarization helps me to use other sources in my writing.
Fourth, the citation is a critical pillar in the academic writing in western culture. At the same
time is a significant issue if the writer made a mistake in citation it considered as steal crime
which can be punished as a reason of it. The citation is the way to save the others rights and
our rights under the title of copyright. The citation defined in the way of borrowing others ideas
and thoughts in our writing. For example, when I need to support my idea or reflect my thought
in a different way I need to bring other people ideas to show a reader the complete platform of
the studied concept. As well as, that gives me the ability to convince the reader by including
strong thoughts from value resources. In the citation there are different schools and methods
depend on the discipline of the student. Before I studied this class (EAP 507,508) I didn’t know
much about those methods but know I can support my writing in the right way. I understood
the sensitiveness of the copyright and the value of having support texts from other resources.
To conclude the EAP course is a very important class I have had. In this course, I understood
many writing skills starting from reading ending by citation. Those skills help me to draw my
thoughts on the right track. Now I can write articles with more confidence and accuracy. As well
as, I am able to include more supporting information from different sources.