Cover Essay

Courtney Lee

Professor Moore
Irish Identity 444
7 December 2008
Cover Essay
Between Irish Identities and my Writing 401 class my writing has improved greatly this semester. Before this semester I would spend one night writing a paper and would not put much thought into it because I was not confident in my writing skills. Taking a writing intensive class my first semester of college was the right decision for me.
Punctuation is one of the most important parts to writing a good paper. In my first paper I had many errors when it came to unnecessary punctuation. My second paper had very few errors. I believe with all the writing that I have done this semester I have been able to learn where to put punctuation marks and where punctuation marks are unnecessary. I have also learned that it is very important to use references when I come to making sure that my punctuation is correct. For my third paper that is what I did and I feel that there are very few errors with my punctuation.
The content of a paper is what makes a paper stand out. When writing a paper I find it important to keep the paper interesting. If the paper is not interesting then it will be harder to keep the attention of the reader.   Including information that is going to make the reader say “wow” is going to make them want to continue reading instead of putting the paper down. I feel that my second paper did this more than my first. With my first paper I was thinking “inside the box” and connected parts of history that have been brought together many times before, but with my second paper I connected the Gaelic Athletic Association and the All American Girls Baseball League which I believe is something that not many people have connected in the past. To write an interesting paper you must have good research skills. My research skills have improved so that I can keep the readers attention. With research you cannot only use the same phrase to find information. Changing words around is very...