Paragraph Reflection

Throughout the semester, I learned how to write a strong thesis statement, transition sentences, and how to intertwine my body paragraphs with one another so that they all connect with one another and flow smoothly. These were all parts of a paper that I previously learned in high school, but the difference is that I was not a strong writer in these areas. Now, after taking English 111 I can confidently say that I have improved tremendously in these areas. I first saw this shift in improvement in paper number four, which discusses the career of a physician assistant. Throughout the paper, I thought I did an excellent job connecting the paragraphs to each other. For example, on page four and five I connected the concluding sentence of paragraph number four and the introductory sentence of paragraph number five to one another, which resulted in the paragraphs running smoothly together, “However, like all careers, there are disadvantages to being a physician assistant. The disadvantages of being a physician assistant are mainly due to work hours, work intensity, and legal issues.” When the paragraphs throughout a paper flow smoothly with one another the paper is easier to understand and helps centralize the

In my first “Who I am as a Writer” paper I stated how one of the areas that I needed to improve was writing. I went into more depth talking about how my writing is not descriptive enough and how I cannot grab the reader's attention. Even though I still need to continue making improvements, I have gotten better in both of these aspects. Compared to my papers in high school my introduction paragraphs have improved.

The final weeks of my first semester in college are coming to an end. My Columbus State english class has written a total of three projects, and a total of four papers. There are a lot of grammatical issues that, at the beginning of the year, I had issues on. However, I have improved on these errors drastically, and have become a better writer because of it. Even though I am still working on many aspects of my writing, I do believe that I have become a better writer. I believe that my biggest issues while writing are run on sentences, making a strong thesis statement, and having quotes stand alone at the beginning of a paragraph.

Over the course of this semester, I have learned many things to improve my writing. Having taken the course before, this semester has been an excellent opportunity to expand on my existing knowledge. Although I had written many essays before, there is still much to be learned and improved. Two factors of writing that I had learned or improved on this semester were transitions/topic sentences and how to properly structure a conclusion paragraph.

Joseph Williams and Lawrence McEnerney, in the third chapter of Writing in College, offer strategies for revising a paper, including suggestions regarding the point (or thesis), the organizational structure of the a paper, the evidence, and the attitude of the argument as a whole. The first step of the revision process “is intended to ensure that the beginning and end of your paper cohere with each other” (14). To accomplish this first step, Williams and McEnerney recommend isolating the point in the introduction and conclusion, and ensuring these sections communicate the same argument. Williams and McEnerney also suggest two different methods to communicate a point: point-first, in which the introduction contains a full statement of the argument

In the fourth chapter of Writing in College, Joseph Williams and Lawrence McEnerney recommend final revisions to make in a paper. Firstly, Williams and McEnerney describe how to polish the introduction and conclusion. The introduction should present “something . . . puzzling, not entirely understood, perhaps overlooked, not noticed, undervalued” (21). An introduction should not directly respond to the assignment in an obvious manner, but instead advance a thoughtful question or new information. Williams and McEnerney also suggest, “Try to find a quotation in the text that you can say inspired your question or raises your problem” to begin the introduction (22). A quote can generate interest and can provide the basis for an argument. A conclusion

After the first draft, one of the most important areas that I needed to improve was the analysis and finding better evidences for my point that I have made in my essay. The reason I had to go through struggle finding evidences in my first draft was because my thesis was not clear which made it hard to show my point in it. After the first draft, I was able to find some convenient sources that are related to my topic which helped me to support my point and made me have a better analysis on those points. However, I believe my analysis is somewhat effective as it should be according to the rubric after my final draft has been done, but there are still some places in the essay where I feel like it can still be improved. I tried my best to improve it as best as I can to make it clear to the audience by expanding more on it by giving more detailed about the points that I have made in the essay. However, I definitely learned how making my analysis more specific helped me a lot to make my essay clearer than being vague and general. After reviewing my Rhetorical Analysis, I definitely learned how doing a better research on my topic makes my argument

I was not nervous about writing this time. I looked at my paper and racked my brain trying to figure out how to cut my essay down from seven pages to three. It was a challenge, my essay was very detailed and filled with rich dialogue. The thought of cutting it, caused me near physical pain. I had poured my heart into that essay and now I had to cut up my work to meet length requirements. Saying that it was a challenge was an understatement. Despite this, I felt confident that I could do it, and I started revising my essay. The first thing I tried was cutting out portions of it. But after reading it, it felt flat, so I had to try another approach. I decided paraphrasing would be the better choice. I cut out everything that didn’t follow the main idea, and paraphrased nearly every piece of dialogue in my story. When I was finished, I had three and half pages. I made a decision, the essay couldn’t be cut down anymore without my story suffering for it, so I left it as it was. The next week I received a nearly perfect grade. Had I been faced with this decision in the beginning of the course, I would not have made the same choice. I would have second guessed myself, tried to shorten my essay even more, and weakened my story. My writing confidence had definitely improved. Now it was time to face my last obstacle, and write the final draft of my persuasive

Collaborating well with others is an important college-ready quality. In my sophomore year of high school, I had to write a collaborative paragraph with three of my classmates. This collaborative paragraph was an assignment for my English II class. For this paragraph, we had to take a quote from an infamous person. We then have to take that quote and we had to try to tie in with a genocide in history. My group had the Rwandan genocide and we had to tie it in with a quote from Hitler. Teamwork, style, and organization were the three aspects that made this collaborative essay a success.

This first paper assignment for me was very fair and was also one that was very enjoyable. The reason being we were able to choose a social justice organization that has some interest to us. This assignment had a very loose feeling in terms of structure. Aside from analyzing the organization's’ website, the rest was a free write about how we defined social justice in our own words. In my revision of my paper, I adjusted certain sentences to help provide some clarity of my message to the reader. I took out chunks of the essay that seemed to be out of place, intending to help reconstruct the fluidity of the paper. I also extended some sentences that were unclear by providing more details to help explain and strengthen the so what of my sentences.

Three substantial changes I made to my essay. I improved the introduction, provided more examples of college writing and my personal experiences in my body paragraphs and fixed the conclusion. In paragraph one, is where I made my first change the introduction was too short and needed more detail on what I was going to discuss in the essay so it could appeal more to readers and they can understand what I was trying to get across. Instead of only just saying my definition of college writing, in my change I talked and went into detail about my main points. The next change to my essay was the providing more examples in the body paragraphs. In paragraph three, I only provided one example of college writing. In the change of my essay, I’ve decided

For my final essay, I have taken the time to write my paper progressively through these few weeks. For example, the first day I received my assignment, I began to construct the outline of my essay and started to create a web diagram of my thoughts and ideas. The second day, I worked on my introduction and formulated my thesis statement. The following day, I began to organize the body paragraphs. Lastly, I concluded my paper by restating my main points and addressing my final viewpoint. I set aside time to revise my paper several times making sure that I have met all requirements. Using my negative feedback from previous papers, for example “Cats vs. Dogs,” I have focused a lot on the mechanics of my paper. I received comments in areas that

For my first paper, “Creativity is just as important as Literacy and Math” I choose to revise my paper from last semester which discussed the importance of creativity is just the same as literacy importance. I enjoyed writing about this topic and felt like I did a really good job; but to improve my writing skills I believe I can write a better paper this semester compared to last semester. I reread my paper for starters and organized the way it was based I had written in. As well as listing the facts and research I had supporting each topic. I added a few more facts and opinions to help support my points made. I didn’t receive enough feedback the response, “it’s well-written” is too vague which couldn’t help me improve my paper in any way. I feel like my introduction and conclusion are both strong, but i’m sure it could be stronger. I feel like the most I struggled in the paper was the desire for it to be written so perfectly though I knew there could always be room for improvement. This also worked as a strength due to lots of time and dedication I spent on the paper both last and this semester.

Writing has always been something I dread. It’s weird because I love talking and telling stories, but the moment I have to write it all down on paper, I become frantic. It’s almost as if a horse race just begun in my mind, with hundreds of horses, or words, running through my mind, unable to place them in chronological order. Because I struggle to form satisfying sentence structure, it takes me hours, sometimes even days, to write one paper. It’s not that I think I’m a “bad writer,” I just get discouraged easily. Needless to say, I don’t think highly of my writing skills. When I was little I loved to both read and write. I read just about any book I could get my hands on, and my journal was my go to for my daily adventures. Although it’s

At the begging of the year, I had little knowledge to write an essay for this class, especially since we did not have many guidelines. For my glorious moment paper, I changed a good amount of text. I went back throwing, revising my paper and making changes. Overall, I changed a majority of my sentence structures because the first final draft contained numerous bland versions. Many of my sentences also had to be fixed in the begging so that they were not so repetitive. From there, I thought it would have been a good idea to changing my opening and closing portions of my essays. I made my introduction and my conclusion end in the same place so that it all ties together. I also made a large amount of changes in my cause and effect essay. Reading and revising the paper, I noticed that the effects were not evident. So, I changed my introduction. While changing my introduction, I noticed that my body paragraphs did not fit. So, I went back through and decided to make all of my paragraphs into something different. In dong so, I made my paper much stronger and I did not have to keep stating how I came to be. I also wen back to the appositive, participial, and prepositional packets we did and tried to use a variety of different structures. Finally, I also made large changing in my AP Essay for The Great Gatsby. After rereading my paper I realized that my paper could be much stronger. In order to make my essay stranger I had to change and critique my introduction. In