Reflective Essay
Dual Enrollment has been my favorite year of English. English 111 should act as a role model for other English writing courses. I always loved writing, but this year so far has taken love to a far extent because I was able to write about a topic of my choice. My wonderful teacher taught me how to become a better college writer, and she helped me improve my writing in many ways through efficient writing processes, lesson plans, and assignments. My writing abilities have developed in style, organization, and use, evaluation, and documentation of outside sources.
Style is a reflection of a writer’s personality. The way a writer incorporates their style in their writing is often a mirror of the individual’s personality. The first essay we wrote in the course, the pre-assessment essay, exemplified my weakness in style. I wrote about how technology is used in today’s world. The flaws of my style in this essay included poor word choice, awkward sentence structures, extensive wordiness, and elementary diction. After reading our textbook notes, I improved my style in all aspects. The descriptive essay I wrote about Kobe Bryant’s shoes showed my development in style, as I had excellent word choice, wrote well-written sentences, eliminated wordiness, and improved diction. This essay marked a new beginning of my growth in style in writing.
In addition to my growth in style, I drastically improved in organization. Organization is one of the key components of an essay; it sets the whole outlook of a paper. My first graded paper in the beginning of the year is a good example of awful organization. My narrative essay had poor organization. The transitions between paragraphs, unneeded details, off topic introduction, and conclusion that brought in new information summed up how bad my organization skills were at the start. I even added an extra purpose of cause and effect to my narrative. Throughout the semester, I learned how to write effective introductions and conclusions, how to eliminate off topic information, and how to transition smoothly between paragraphs. My classification and division essay on ambitions of different types of athletes showed how I improved in organization. My transitions were fluent, and I stayed on topic with relevant information throughout the whole paper. My introduction brightly opened my paper, and my conclusion effectively summed up my paper. Receiving my best grade on a paper thus far, my classification and division essay had outstanding organization.
This year, I also learned how the use, evaluation, and documentation of outside sources can really help research essays. In college, research essays are huge, and the research essay I did improved my abilities to efficiently write one. My research essay’s purpose was compare and contrast, and my topic was Android phones versus Apple iPhones. This essay was my favorite paper. Not only did I have to compare and contrast two subjects, but I had to use outside sources as well. I incorporated an interview from a lab technician from Sprint as my primary research. My secondary research included sources from articles, journals, and websites from an online database from Tidewater Community College. The information I received from my research helped me distinguish the two types of smartphones from each other. I learned how to bring research into my paper and how to MLA cite the information to avoid plagiarism. This essay took the most amount of time to write, but it was well worth it because of how much I enjoyed it, especially doing a presentation on it.
Even though I have improved very much this semester, I still have one more semester to become better. In English 112, I hope that I develop into an even stronger writer than I am now. If I continue to put in hard work and dedication into all of my writing pieces, I will pursue my goal of becoming an effective college bound writer. There is always room for improvement in anything in life.. Like volleyball players, I will rotate through more stages of writing in the second semester and learn more from my mistakes through that rotation.
Dual Enrollment has been my favorite year of English. English 111 should act as a role model for other English writing courses. I always loved writing, but this year so far has taken love to a far extent because I was able to write about a topic of my choice. My wonderful teacher taught me how to become a better college writer, and she helped me improve my writing in many ways through efficient writing processes, lesson plans, and assignments. My writing abilities have developed in style, organization, and use, evaluation, and documentation of outside sources.
Style is a reflection of a writer’s personality. The way a writer incorporates their style in their writing is often a mirror of the individual’s personality. The first essay we wrote in the course, the pre-assessment essay, exemplified my weakness in style. I wrote about how technology is used in today’s world. The flaws of my style in this essay included poor word choice, awkward sentence structures, extensive wordiness, and elementary diction. After reading our textbook notes, I improved my style in all aspects. The descriptive essay I wrote about Kobe Bryant’s shoes showed my development in style, as I had excellent word choice, wrote well-written sentences, eliminated wordiness, and improved diction. This essay marked a new beginning of my growth in style in writing.
In addition to my growth in style, I drastically improved in organization. Organization is one of the key components of an essay; it sets the whole outlook of a paper. My first graded paper in the beginning of the year is a good example of awful organization. My narrative essay had poor organization. The transitions between paragraphs, unneeded details, off topic introduction, and conclusion that brought in new information summed up how bad my organization skills were at the start. I even added an extra purpose of cause and effect to my narrative. Throughout the semester, I learned how to write effective introductions and conclusions, how to eliminate off topic information, and how to transition smoothly between paragraphs. My classification and division essay on ambitions of different types of athletes showed how I improved in organization. My transitions were fluent, and I stayed on topic with relevant information throughout the whole paper. My introduction brightly opened my paper, and my conclusion effectively summed up my paper. Receiving my best grade on a paper thus far, my classification and division essay had outstanding organization.
This year, I also learned how the use, evaluation, and documentation of outside sources can really help research essays. In college, research essays are huge, and the research essay I did improved my abilities to efficiently write one. My research essay’s purpose was compare and contrast, and my topic was Android phones versus Apple iPhones. This essay was my favorite paper. Not only did I have to compare and contrast two subjects, but I had to use outside sources as well. I incorporated an interview from a lab technician from Sprint as my primary research. My secondary research included sources from articles, journals, and websites from an online database from Tidewater Community College. The information I received from my research helped me distinguish the two types of smartphones from each other. I learned how to bring research into my paper and how to MLA cite the information to avoid plagiarism. This essay took the most amount of time to write, but it was well worth it because of how much I enjoyed it, especially doing a presentation on it.
Even though I have improved very much this semester, I still have one more semester to become better. In English 112, I hope that I develop into an even stronger writer than I am now. If I continue to put in hard work and dedication into all of my writing pieces, I will pursue my goal of becoming an effective college bound writer. There is always room for improvement in anything in life.. Like volleyball players, I will rotate through more stages of writing in the second semester and learn more from my mistakes through that rotation.