Throughout my life, I have always pushed myself to grow, whether that be in intelligence, strength, or generosity. As a child, I dissected starfish and studied music theory at an honors summer camp rather than splashing in the pool with other kids. Later on, I exerted myself physically through sports and regular exercise. I also volunteered my time and effort throughout high school in church and community events to help others. Likewise, I saw my weaknesses in my writing skills and felt the need to take a writing based class.
Throughout the course, I have learned many skills to improve my writing and have therefore become a more mature writer in the process. As a writer, there were a few areas that I struggled with in particular. The major areas that needed improvement were prewriting and planning. Before taking Comp 1, I never drafted an outline or used brainstorming to my advantage. Instead, I wrote whatever came to mind and hoped it was good enough for my teachers, leaving the mandatory prewriting for the end of the process, serving no purpose whatsoever besides a grade.
For the profile paper, I stuck to my old ways and quickly realized that in a writing based class, notes and planning were vital to a good paper. Therefore, in my commentary and argument papers, I decided that it would be a necessity to spend an abundance of time gathering my thoughts and formatting outlines. By focusing more on planning my papers, I improved the flow of my writing and managed to creative more cohesive essays. Another area I struggled with was in the citing and formatting of MLA style throughout my papers.
Through my other Advanced Placement courses, MLA formatting and citing was always important, but not graded as strictly as it was in comp. While other courses were concerned more with content rather than formatting, being held to such a high standard of following strict MLA requirements will be beneficial to me throughout college when professors expect for papers to be formatted correctly. At the beginning of the course, my errors included simple mistakes such as incorrect spacing or page number font and color.
Later on, in my argumentative essay, the citations gave me trouble since previously I had relied on EasyBib to produce a citation for me. By reading the textbook, practicing in class, and researching on Purdue’s Writing Lab, I learned the different parts of the citations in MLA format and could produce the basic citations that I needed. However, some of the more complex citations that I needed, such as citing quoted material from text, still needed improvement even after studying the proper MLA citation format.
Overall, my MLA formatting and citing has drastically improved and citing has become a more natural skill for me. Before taking this course, it was a rarity for me to write a cohesive paper. Although I had strong ideas and exceptional grammar, my ideas tended to be scattered throughout my essays, including minor details and leaving out pertinent information where needed. Throughout English comp, I learned how to write in a way so that my points were tighter knit and flowed from one to the next.
In my profile paper over a pizza restaurant, I tended to lose focus and mention details about food throughout many paragraphs rather than in one central paragraph. In the next paper, a commentary on the homeless, my ideas were more focused and connected, however my opposing viewpoints were mentioned in the introduction and then not again until three-fourths of my paper later. This resulted in my position not standing out as much as it would have if I had covered the entire counter position in the beginning of my paper rather than dragging it out.
On my argumentative essay, all of my points were strong and flowed well, however my thesis was not stated in a way that would allow my evidence to support it directly. I have progressively strengthened the cohesiveness of my papers and the transitioning between ideas, which results in essays that are easier to follow and more interesting overall. Another skill that I have improved throughout this class is the ability to find credible sources when researching.
In previous classes, I had always been taught to look at the domains of websites I was using or checking the background of the author. While researching for my commentary discussing the homeless, there were many sources discussing the topic, but not all of them were extremely credible. Since I only needed a few sources due to the fact that it was only a commentary piece, I chose to use the statistics-based information because it was more credible than opinions on the topic.
However, on my argumentative paper, many sources were needed and I relied heavily on databases because they have higher level pieces that can be found easily when the researcher knows exactly what they are looking for. Throughout the argumentative research in particular, I was able to discern the validity and relevance of the sources that were available to me and in turn found some very strong articles that both supported and countered my stance on feminism. These two research papers have taught me how to research better and determine the best sources to use when writing
Throughout English Composition 1, I have learned many valuable skills including prewriting, citing, researching, and connecting ideas. My goal in improving my writing skills was met through this class, although there can always be more room for improvement. I have learned that it is important to be confident and passionate in my writing because it will cause the reader to be more engaged as well. This class tested my work ethic and has prepared me well for any college classes that I will take in the future.
