The Transition to College Writing

Keith Hjortshoj's Chapter "Footstools and Furniture" examined many of the issues that I struggled with in high school when writing papers. My teachers would often write "general/vague" and "sloppy/disorganized". I could introduce the subject I wanted to write about well, but when it came to organizing my points, I had two major problems. First, I could not state my points clearly enough to the point where it just sounded like a vague statement - I wanted to express my thoughts better and more thoroughly but my lack of a (good) vocabulary prohibited me from doing so. Once my vague and sloppy thoughts were on the paper, I found that they had no "flow" and were not transitioned well. This brings up my second major problem: I struggled with organizing my thoughts and developing body paragraphs with clean transitions. I usually had points that did not fit in with what my main thesis of the paper is, making many jumbled thoughts on a paper. 

The best thing I can do for myself is proofread, and start early. I need to organize my thoughts on printer paper to make my "road map" for my paper, then I need to think about each transition and develop it clearly from point to point. When I complete the work, I need to proofread it aloud.