I realized that I had to improve my

I realized that I had to improve my understanding of grammar in order to write for college. Before T came to college, grammar was not my strong point. For example, I often created run-on sentences of sentence fragments. I was more concerned with what I wanted to say than with how it was said. In fact, my professors would not accept this type of writing and made me revise many times. Consequently, I made grammar my second priority. I reviewed the basic grammatical structures such as subjects and verbs and checked all my work for verb tense consistency and punctuation. As a result, my sentences became more complex because I included transitional words, gerunds, and embedded clauses. The more I write, the more my writing improved.
Furthermore, because I was accustomed to writing letter and informal essays, I usually wrote the way I spoke with my family and friends. It was quite common for me to include slang and abbreviated terms, which were appropriate in social contexts but were unacceptable in formal essays. I soon realized that academic writing required a much more sophisticated vocabulary. Not surprisingly, improving my vocabulary became my third and final goal. Thus, I bought a new dictionary and thesaurus to help expand my knowledge. I became more aware of how often I repeated the same words and phrases throughout my essays. I often searched for synonyms to replace words that I thought were too simple for a college essay. I also focused more on the rules of spelling and corrected any errors I found before submitting my assignment to the instructor.