Reflection Paper In English

In Joseph Harris’s chapter “Revising” which was originally published in his book, Rewriting: How to Do Things with Texts in 2006, Harris emphasizes the importance of the revising process, how to revise and improve effectively, and informs us about the fact that revising is overlooked and rushed by writers today. He shares tips on how to effectively revise and demonstrates using excerpts within his chapters.

The art of writing is a complex and difficult process. Proper writing requires careful planning, revision, and proofreading. Throughout the past semester, the quality of my writing has evolved significantly. At first, I struggled with the separation of different types of paragraphs, and I found writing them laborious. Constant practice, however, has eliminated many of my original difficulties, and helped to inspire confidence in my skills. As a collegiate writer, my strength lies in my clear understanding of the fundamentals of writing, while my primary weakness is proofreading my own work.

Within the past eight weeks, I have realized my strengths and weaknesses within the writing process. I have realized that I do not utilize the first step within the writing process of prewriting. However, for the drafting, revising, and polishing steps of the writing process, I am very familiar and use additional resources to strengthen the writing assignment. I create multiple drafts, which includes revising and polishing in each step. Therefore, I use all three of these steps in multiple drafts as I reach the final product for

In the beginning of the term I was assigned an essay that described me as a writer and thinker. With this essay being my first assignment, I was quite stressed with the feeling of failure. After this assignment I learned the importance of the drafting system. After my paper was graded I received it back and noticed multiple mistakes. This was the first step I practiced improving. Writing multiple drafts helped me analysis the material I wrote from another point of view. For example, I was able to eliminate sections that were unrelated from the main point. Building my vocabulary up another step I had focus as a writer and thinker. I used a combination between the dictionary and thesaurus to help me increase my vocabulary. Overtime with experience, I saw improvements in all of these categories that I was struggling

When I took this English 101 class four months ago, I wanted to learn how to develop my writing skills and to communicate my thoughts clearly in writing using the English language. My parents are both French specking Cameroon, so I grew up in a French specking house. Before I assume everyone could understand what I was writing and I did not put too much effort to learn the technicalities of the English language.

you believe and the paper provides the information to support your thesis is important also.

My vocabulary has improved due to the many words we have learned in English II and I have learned that in order to create the perfect paper, you must have many rough drafts. One of my strengths as a writer has been my editing, which helps me fix the fluidity (one of my weaknesses) of the paper. Another weakness in my writing is not brainstorming before I write. In most instances I am able to start a paper right away but then get stuck after the first or second body paragraph. However, I often fix these mistakes by having multiple peers and mentors read over my drafts. By adding this step to the process of my writing, I am able to produce a stronger paper. My goal in writing for the next year is to improve upon the structure and format of my paper. This could be easily accomplished by learning how to write SCQuIRT paragraph. In the future I hope to be able to build upon my skills as a

Thinking back to the beginning of the semester, I improved in fixing my mistakes in my writing. Whenever I review and edit my drafts, I would usually overlook most mistakes because I would just read my draft but not look at the mistakes I commit. In my paper one draft, “Opening, social mind bugs are a trait human have developed to become social: human is social animals.” In my paper, one final, “Opening, social mind bugs are traits humans have developed to become social: humans are social animals.” In this first paper, I only recognized little mistakes that stood out in my final paper. I already noticed that I can remove the word “opening,” and I could have used a semicolon instead of a colon. I improved on looking for grammar mistakes. I started using a trick my tutor recommended for me to use when I am editing my paper. I should read my draft slower, so I

Prior to taking this class, I would always just complete the number of drafts that my teachers would request. I would simply make the small grammatical edit and not worry too much about the argument or how my prose sounded. Tons of useless filler sentences and unnecessary words filled my papers. That said, no one is ever going to make a perfect paper because writing is not about being perfect. It is an ongoing quest for persistent development of your work and this was crucial for me to realize. I would always assume that my work did not need numerous edits or copious amounts of revision. Looking back, I am not sure if this was because I secretly feared having to correct myself so I deliberately ignored digging through all of the flaws, or that I believed my writing quality would be just sufficient to reach my desired grade. I think the more realistic answer is the former. This semester has encouraged me to break down the stigma around needing to write a perfect paper. It is not happening. Once I came to this conclusion, my reservations about truly analyzing my papers melted away slowly. This testament to the continual process that is writing, though initially tough to deal with, will surely make my writing better and more

Joseph Harris’ chapter on “Revising,” from his book Rewriting (2006), explores various strategies and tips that students can use to approach a revision for a writing. Joseph Harris is an English professor at the University of Delaware. He also taught writing courses at Duke University and University of Pittsburgh. Harris notes that there are key differences among the labors of writing: drafting, revising, and editing. Drafting involves putting down thoughts on paper or "generating text” (101). Revising involves rethinking and changing significant ideas. On the other hand, editing simply involves making minor tweaks in spelling, grammar, and word choice that do not change the meaning of the paper as a whole. The first step Harris describes is

I was able to fix the errors seen in writing by incorporating the ability of proofreading backwards. When you read from top to bottom, your paper may take on a perfect appeal that is not evocative of the mistakes made on your part as the writer of the document. Proofreading backwards allowed me to interpret my writing from a different point of view and gave me the vision necessary to catch the mistakes that I overlooked when I was revising my work. My researching skills improved due to my knowledge of the libraries extensive database. When I used the libraries database, I was able to access a wide variety of features such as Credo and NC Live to research my topic through a wide variety of credible sources. This allowed me to carry out my research with an open mind as I reviewed the work of other scholars, professors, and professional writers who offered their own unique perspective on the topic that I was researching.

I have only been attending Cleveland State University for two semesters, and as this course comes to an end I feel like I grown and learned many techniques more than ever. I came to Cleveland State University with only my high school knowledge on how to format an argumentative essay, and throughout this course I now know how to write and format many other papers. Taking English 100 has taught me how to break down and analyze an article, it taught me how to find confidence in my work, and it helped me grow to an even better writer.

One of the most problematic difficulties I faced and am still facing is self-revision. When writing a paper, it is extremely important to revise your essay multiple times before submitting the final version. Every revision helps to build a more polished essay. I feel that my paper fails to progress enough from the rough draft to the final. To fix this, I need to give myself longer breaks between revising. Becoming skilled at revising my own papers will allow me to develop into a more competent, successful

Based on my past experiences, I have learned that making decisions, especially big important ones, such as getting married, making a job or career change, deciding which church to attend, and even deciding where to spend my holidays, are best made with sure guidance from the Holy Spirit, the scripture, Godly counsel, and prayer, or else I could be in for major disappointment and setbacks. I have also come to learn that even if all the factors are present and point to “yes” (i.e. the scripture approves, and my spiritual advisors approve), if I do not have the inner peace of the Holy Spirit, it likely means that I should not move forward with that decision. It could be that although the logic all around me makes the decision seem safe, there are factors that I cannot see that God can see which make it the wrong decision, since He sees further into the future than we do, and He is all-knowing. This can also work in the reverse. Everything I see may make me want to go in a different direction, even the advice of my spiritual advisors, but the Holy Spirit and the scripture may say walk by faith, not by sight, in the direction that does not seem as likely to be right (2 Corinthians 5:7). Most of all, what I have learned from past experiences, is that even with all the careful precaution I take to make the right choice, I will inevitably make the wrong choices sometimes in life, and God is aware, and has made a way that even my wrong choices can still help put me in the place to

I never realized how impactful a certain decision could be on my life. I learned a few years ago an important lesson about my contemporaries and how choices generate impact. This began in something as insignificant as a local swim team in my city. Combative parents and their selfish actions created a conflict affecting people’s lives and work. From all this, I discovered this situation taught me more life lessons in five minutes than any other in my life.