Cesar Romero
Professor Hoehne
Fairytales and Rewritings
1 December 2019
The Semester in 4 Pages
When I first came into college, I knew what I could and could not do in terms of writing. I was already aware that when writing, I could get lost in my head and cause my writing to seem really confusing to someone reading it who isn’t me. Furthermore, when it came to incorporating sources, I knew that what I struggled with was finding the right format when citing the sources I was using and the way I should use my sources in my writing. I couldn’t figure out how to build on the information that I had cited and had mainly used the information just for its presence rather than its meaning.
To start, I figured that the literacy narrative would’ve been the easiest essay to write. But, when it had come down to writing it, I found myself struggling on figuring out what would be something good to write about, something meaningful, since it would be a narrative about the way literature had an impact on our life. So, looking back into my past to find that memory in which literature was impactful was a challenge. However, it was helpful when we looked at the examples found in the textbook we were using for the class, “The Norton Field Guide to Writing”, and the examples sent to us by Kyle. It helped me get an idea about what I can write about and how the essay should look in the end. When I did find something to talk about, I found myself struggling in expressing what I was thinking, my essay felt rushed, as the conclusion to it didn’t really make much sense to the readers reading it. I noticed this issue when my professor and fellow classmates had peer reviewed it in class. I wrote it without thinking about the audience that I was writing to, which would cause the essay to make sense to me, but not to others.
To fix this, I tried to add more detail so that my narrative could make more sense to anyone reading it. Furthermore, I tried putting myself in the shoes of someone who’s just getting to know me or doesn’t know me at all. I thought to myself, as this other person, what is going on? When is this happening? Who’s here? Where is here? Answering these basic questions would’ve helped my writing make a little more sense. Although I had fixed this, in the final narrative, there were a lot of errors in terms of time. I found that in my essay I had switched from past and present constantly, and realized that this too was a result of me writing to myself. It was my thoughts being put down on paper but not in the proper form.
The essay after this, the exploratory essay, was also a bit challenging. I found it difficult to find a topic that would be interesting to the reader. When I eventually found what I wanted to talk about, I felt that when writing it out I kept on incorporating the quotes incorrectly, so as a result my essay kept sounding as if I was taking a stance in my exploratory essay. I was also finding it difficult trying to incorporate quotes in a way they would build on my ideas and support them without being to strong or too weak. To fix the structure part of that problem, I used one of the online resources that my professor had provided me with to know how to incorporate quotes, ‘Purdue Owl’. After this, I found it easier to incorporate quotes, structure wise.
Furthermore, when it came to spread them out so that they support my ideas nicely, I decided to break them apart into paragraphs. I would introduce a new idea then have information from a source that would back it up. Following this, I would explain a little bit on the information, or build on it, to strengthen it even more. I would also ty to connect all the information I pulled from my sources so that the flow of my essay is nicer and more together. However, I did mess up a little bit in the flow of my essay. Whenever I would begin a new paragraph, my first sentence was basically the same sentence but worded differently. This was the big hiccup when it came to the exploratory essay. Although I felt that I may have taken a stance in the essay, when incorporating new ideas, I made sure to also have at least some counter points so to not make the information really demanding on the reader.
The final essay in the semester was the research critical analysis essay. This essay was similar to the exploratory essay but it had relied heavily on really presenting my stance nicely using sources to back it up. More importantly, I had to include a counterargument to my argument. One that was not too strong, but also not too weak. Finding that perfect balance in between was really crucial to me because I didn’t want to relay my information in a way that leaves the reader uninformed about the other side of the argument. I used the idea I presented in the exploratory essay in my research analysis essay, using the same sources too. But, I hadn’t used sources solely from google searches, rather, I used sources found in the library databases such as JSTOR. I had previous experience with this database, so it was the main one I used when collecting my sources. Furthermore, I made sure to read them thoroughly so that they weren’t sources just put into my essay just to be there.
The next obstacle I had to work on was incorporating them into my paper using proper MLA format. I too had experience using MLA and having sources in my papers, but what I found confusing at times was the punctuation. I wasn’t sure about whether the period to end the sentence came before the end of the quote or after the end of the quote. As stated above, I used ‘Purdue Owl’ to find more information about the proper form when it came to incorporating quotes, but this time I had to get more into it since some of my quotes had been quoted in the article, I was quoting them from.
Since the start of the year, I knew my weaknesses when it came to writing. I didn’t portray my thoughts clearly, lacked any real flow of ideas, and had to work on the structure of my writing. But as the semester went on, and as I began to write more and more types of essays, I began to see some improvement in the way I write. By using new techniques such as in-class peer review sessions, viewing online and print examples, searching through databases, and using an online reference for structural help I learned new ways to write along with them. I find myself more knowledgeable when it comes to writing structure and a little more centered on my audience when writing, although there is always room for improvement. Overall, the semester has helped me strengthen my writing and my expression of it.
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