I am a Writer

I am writing this brief essay to introduce myself as a writer to my classmates and the teacher. I am taking a course called ‘English Composition.’ The main purpose of this essay is to reflect on my writing, make some deliberate changes to my writing style and cultivate (to) conversations with others about writing. (with others.)

Thanks to my beloved parents, I started writing my diary even before I went to kindergarten. Back then, although I could speak, (but) I could barely (barley) write any Chinese words, so I had to use Pinyin. I remember one day I wrote over 100 words, which means a lot to a 3-year-old child. It was a brief description about a story my mother had told me before I went to bed, though basically I was just retelling the story. Anyway, (Anyways,) I kept writing in my diary for fifteen (15) years. I am eighteen (18) now and, as an engineering student in my second year of college, I still keep up this habit.

When I was in high school, I did not write my journals every day but I did write at least every week to reflect on my student (study) life. Sometimes I wrote in English and I began to feel the importance of logic in writing. One can never write a good English essay if he/she cannot write a good Chinese essay (as a native Chinese speaker). An English essay can be convincing with only simple but accurate words as long as its framework and logic is perfect. Don’t get me wrong, lexical abundance is still very important. Another thing I want to say is that critical thinking is also important but many students don’t have the ability to think outside (out of) the box, which is sad. I wish I had known (knew) that earlier.

Two years ago, I took the gaokao, which is known as the National College Entrance Exam in China. Every student is required to write an essay of more than 800 words in Chinese. For a large number of students it’s a pain in the ass and (.) I am one of them. Despite that, I gave it my best shot. As a result of (Thanks to) that exam, I had to undertake a basic writing course, (do the basic writing training,) writing (write) essays one after another for practice, the aim being (and) to get a higher grade so I could gain admittance (get admitted) to my dream/preferred/favoured school. Though I did get a relatively high grade, I still think my writing is lacking. (sucks.) That’s really (kind of) why I took the course.

Well, I would say the writing course has been of great benefit as your grammar and sentence construction are very good. Your major error (I counted sixteen times) is with not leaving a gap after a period/full stop or a comma. With the title we write the significant words with initial capitals and numbers are usually written in full in English. I think you can probably get away with using the word 'sucks' colloquially, but because of its derivation it is best not to use it in quality English writing. You can, of course, say 'I still think my writing is .... not up to scratch / lacking in quality / has room for improvement / could be better etc..... Actually, I happen to think it is very good!