Writing Reflection 1: Writing Goals and College Essay Reflecction
Goal 1- Using a Wider Selection of Vocabulary. I will make sure that I user a wider selection of vocabulary, instead of repeating the same words over and over again. In my first draft of my college essay I ended up using the word “actually” a total of six times, four of which were in the first paragraph. To improve this I will try to use different, unique words. I will also check to make sure that I do no use the same word too many times I will ask my friends to read through my papers and I will also count how many times I use unnecessary filler words in my papers and find alternate substitutions or take out the word completely.
Goal 2- Using Evidence to Support My Claims. I will make sure that I have enough evidence to support each of my claims, not just one or two of them. In my Tocqueville writing I used one quote in my whole essay, and that was simply as an introduction. I needed to add a quote for my example for how the oppressors are not always right. To fix this for the future I will follow the TEA paragraph format as closely as possible to make sure that every analysis I have has evidence to support it.
Goal 3- Creating a Strong, Clear Thesis. I will make sure that my thesis is clear and easy to find in my essays. In my Tocqueville writing I thought I had a strong thesis but after talking to Lori about my essay I realized that my thesis was not actually clear at all. To improve this in the future I will create a graphic organizer to layout all my thoughts and then create my thesis. Then after writing my whole essay I will reread it looking specifically looking for the thesis and how clearly it correlates to the rest of the essay.
College Essay Reflection. My college essay was a huge refinement process. During this process, my writing skills greatly improved. When I first started my essay it was short, choppy, and super repetitive. I kept repeating the same words, such as “actually”, “learn”, and “failure”, over and over again in my essay. I also had a hard time making the sentences flow like they were supposed to. This could be seen in my second paragraph where I said, “Instead she would ask me more questions that would leave me even more confused at the end.” When I was writing this for the first time, the sentence seemed perfectly fine, but when I asked some of my peers for their opinions they said it sounded off and needed to be rephrased. After working on the sentence and getting more opinions from my peers, the sentence transformed into, “instead she would ask me different questions that would leave me even more confused afterwards.” This may not seem like a huge difference out of context but in-context the sentence structure made a lot more sense and flowed better. Without the help of my peers and their critiques I don’t think my essay would have turned out nearly as strong, their input was monumental in the creation of my essay.
Goal 2- Using Evidence to Support My Claims. I will make sure that I have enough evidence to support each of my claims, not just one or two of them. In my Tocqueville writing I used one quote in my whole essay, and that was simply as an introduction. I needed to add a quote for my example for how the oppressors are not always right. To fix this for the future I will follow the TEA paragraph format as closely as possible to make sure that every analysis I have has evidence to support it.
Goal 3- Creating a Strong, Clear Thesis. I will make sure that my thesis is clear and easy to find in my essays. In my Tocqueville writing I thought I had a strong thesis but after talking to Lori about my essay I realized that my thesis was not actually clear at all. To improve this in the future I will create a graphic organizer to layout all my thoughts and then create my thesis. Then after writing my whole essay I will reread it looking specifically looking for the thesis and how clearly it correlates to the rest of the essay.
College Essay Reflection. My college essay was a huge refinement process. During this process, my writing skills greatly improved. When I first started my essay it was short, choppy, and super repetitive. I kept repeating the same words, such as “actually”, “learn”, and “failure”, over and over again in my essay. I also had a hard time making the sentences flow like they were supposed to. This could be seen in my second paragraph where I said, “Instead she would ask me more questions that would leave me even more confused at the end.” When I was writing this for the first time, the sentence seemed perfectly fine, but when I asked some of my peers for their opinions they said it sounded off and needed to be rephrased. After working on the sentence and getting more opinions from my peers, the sentence transformed into, “instead she would ask me different questions that would leave me even more confused afterwards.” This may not seem like a huge difference out of context but in-context the sentence structure made a lot more sense and flowed better. Without the help of my peers and their critiques I don’t think my essay would have turned out nearly as strong, their input was monumental in the creation of my essay.