Reflective Essay: What I Learned In My Writing Class

My writing experience about the career paper was more informative than I was expecting. By reading the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH), I quickly realized that there was so much information about a career in medicine, I was not aware of especially with regards to employment and predicted employment rates. However, the most difficult part of the writing process was trying to incorporate personal information into the narrative while using statistics and descriptions from OOH to come up with a coherent essay. For example, with a plethora of personal information and details about factors that has motivated me to pursue a career in medicine, it was difficult to summarize and incorporate information from OOH into my

I immensely struggled when writing. Taking my scrambled thoughts and uncoordinated analysis and converting it into clean and understandable words on a page was arduous. I could not express my thoughts in proper academic format. I understood the importance of writing to every subject. It was essential that I learn to condense my ideas and feeling into coherent written word. After much debate, I decided that the best way to improve my writing skills was to take an advanced English course.

My first day opening my D2L course page I was apprehensive yet excited; initially diving into this course I was set aback by how much work there was in such a short time. Not truly understanding that I had signed up for an eight-week course (which upon my discovery made me chuckle with a new understanding of the course load) I jumped in, excited to get my journey towards a degree and new career on the move. Suddenly, I am reading about foreign concepts; MLA format? What in the world is this? That evening after I had put my son down for the night I went through each part of the first week’s work going so far as setting up a template with word that was perfectly aligned with MLA formatting.

Writing influences the way humans communicate. Good writing skills are essential in the working world and it’s important for our own self. The love for writing creative stories that engage the reader personally feels like an impossible task. After thirteen years of English I’ve realized that English does not come easy to me. It’s important to note that my writing skills have improved over the years. Going into my first year of college, I was nervous. I knew that my writing needed improvement. During my first semester of college, I was able to take the WAC 101 class. This class not only improved my writing, but it also encouraged me to start reading again. I look at reading as a task instead of a hobby, but I know that it can progress toward something that I like to do on my free time. WAC 101 is a class that helps develop a student’s writing skills. To measure the progress, outcomes in different areas of writing are reflected upon.

This is the end of my 8-week course for English 112 Writing & Research in Disciplines. Over the course of the class, I have grown and learned more than I actually thought possible about writing but there is still room for improvement. I came into this course, not a strong writer it’s not really my strong point and never has been. Although this course has taught me some various methods of writing a paper. For example, the last assignment where the paper had to be written in CSE format. It was difficult at first because I used to only writing in MLA or APA format.

My writing has improved in many ways this semester, one of the big ways (of which I

I like don’t want to write papers. Sentences like that were sometimes what I would produce in writing high school and college essays. Sometimes it was due to not having a clear thought process and a wondering mind, not doing a good job of proof reading my work, and more recently because of technology. With the help of spell check, technology plays a small part in how effective pieces of work become. The ability to cut, paste, and move sentences around in your paper without having to retype minimizes the burden on all writers. After having to take an Introduction to Writing class again, it has helped me to re-learn the mistakes I used to make. Mistakes like correctness faults, grammatical errors, and proof reading before submitting my work.

All the outcomes are clear and I like how we are expected to reach them. I am a little bit scared with the grammar part and the specific skills that I should develop for this course. My writing skills are not the best’s, since English is not my first language. I love to read, and since I moved to US I started doing it in English. This is helping me to have a better understanding of the language, but I haven’t be paying attention to the writing. I hope to develop the good skills writing that are expected from me.

Writing has been a challenge for me. After reading the feedback you gave me for my essays, I realized how bad my writing was. While reading my journal, I found the following note: “I was able to summarize and to point out the main ideas of what the authors were trying to say”. Obviously, I did not know how to incorporate those ideas to my argument. Analyzing the articles I was reading and using evidence to support my argument was an issue as well. I struggled with the structure & organization of my essays and making my paper longer. My paragraphs were disconnected, and I had trouble establishing my thesis. I had lot of work to do so that my portfolio revision could be at least, acceptable. To write a better essay, I had to understand what the authors were trying to say and the only way I could understand these articles was by annotating. We talked about this technique in class at the beginning of the semester. And to be honest, I did not use it until now. My first attempt of writing the conversation paper was a complete disaster. My writing was confusing, and my ideas were vague. How could I write a good paper if I had no idea what the authors were trying to say?

Looking back on the feedback for my first essay, you made me realize that I had a pretty substantial problem: my argument was not really arguable, as it was already proved by the text. After reading this, reading other examples of papers you handed out in class, and participating in this class, I was able to learn a new way of writing. Never before in my essays had I ever really made an argument that was not already apparent in the minds of the readers. This class taught me how to look deeper into a text and to use the skill of close reading to discover nuances in the text that could lead to an entirely new argument. The literary topoi especially helped in this matter, as I was able to use these as tools to discover new ways with which to analyze texts. Although this is exceedingly more difficult and I have still not completely gotten the hang of it, it has definitely expanded my boundaries as a writer. Additionally, this final paper has introduced me to the world of literary criticism, something I had never delved into before. I even was able to give my best crack at it despite being way out of my league in

My writing skills developed drastically. I went into elementary school not knowing a word of English becuase my parents spoke Cantonese at home. Therefore, I struggled in elementary and middle school. However, the teachers at my high school have taught me amply. Therefore, English is a strong subject of mine. I learns the conventions of writing a well-structured and drive essay. However, I struggle in communicating. For example, I am slightly fearful of presenting, but I push myself into producing well-developed lessons. Additionally, I rely heavily off a script and is a skill I am actively working to

Throughout my time in this course, I feel my writing skills have improved tremendously. I am now more capable of composing more organized, grammatically correct, and cohesive essays. In addition to acquiring many important writing skills during this course, I also learned how to write an MLA formatted essay. The many assignments requiring MLA format helped me to learn this skill, including the reflective essay, profile essay, MLA quiz, annotated bibliography, and the research paper. As a writer now compare to in the beginning of this course, I feel like I have a better understanding of how to structure an essay and how to properly write essays in a timely manner. The more essays I completed, the easier it became to effectively structure and make my essays sound as fluid as possible.

Over the semester the semester i have felt like i have grown in my reading and writing abilities. This class has been a great refresher for me and it has help me remember things that i have seen in years. I have never been a good writer, but after this class i feel a little more confident in my writing ability. I can now form better sentence and make my papers flow a little better.

Writing wasn’t exactly my strongest subject. In fact, compared to the more technical subjects that I often excelled at, writing was a relatively weak subject. Rarely would I score very well on my essays in high school. However, my approach to writing changed forever after taking College Writing R1A. One semester of writing several essays over a myriad of topics was all I needed to refine my writing techniques. Although numerous prior habits I had with writing changed over the span of fifteen weeks, there was one reform that was absolutely monumental: Altering my approach to revision. In high school, my approach to revision was just completely off. I took writing too mathematically and logically; my writing seemed fine unless pointed out otherwise, and I never made changes to the essays unless a comment was explicitly written in that section. As a result, I could never understand why I scored so consistently low on my essays in High School Language Arts class. There was obviously something wrong with my writing, but that problem would not be rectified until my first semester of college.

In the grand game of life there is always a simple question; where is the end, where is the beginning? How will my journey effect my life and will it affect it in a positive manner. For me this began in the 1301 classroom where the discussion of English essays where the main topic. For someone such as myself, the thought of writing sent chills down my neck. This is mainly due to my aversion to the English language that I have struggled with for so long. That brings not only me but anyone who struggles the same to think about how something such as composition will affect the future. By taking composition I have come to realize that it is a much needed ability. Composition is used everywhere from home to the workplace, whether it be an essay to an email. Saying so I have come to terms that I am terrible at it, and that has made me try harder to understand and use it in a professional manner. To start my composing process I try to choose a location with minimal noise because of my ADD, and with minimal distractions it lets me think hard about the topic. After I have the proper location I start the process by thinking about the topic at hand and if I have any experience. Once that the thesis must be composed and there I have begun writing an essay. That is the process that I have learned to make a well-planned and thought out essay. When it comes to writing a person needs to be well versed in it so that they may bring the topic that they choose towards the reader.