My essay “Embracing the Suck” was principally about the idea of how writing essays may suck, but that it is important to push through and get it done regardless of whatever painful circumstances that may appear. In my personal experiences I had, in the past, not written very well due to a lack of motivation. Most of what I read and had to write about in English classes I thought were utter nonsense, therefore I had no will to do well. I had the raw talent to write well, and I was generally good at reading. But without any reason to use this, I only put out terrible papers which were meant only to satisfy basic requirements. It wasn’t until my life’s goals became known that I realized that, if I want anything out of life, I had better write and communicate well with everyone, particularly the teachers who will ultimately determine whether or not I will succeed. This lesson applies universally to people however because, not only do grade school and college students need to impress their teachers and professors, adults in the workplace must also communicate effectively with their colleagues, bosses, and customers so that they may succeed in life.

Over the course of the writing process, I had learned to shape figurative language into something coherent and digestible. While vivid figurative language is great for getting the reader’s attention, it is not useful for teaching them what I was actually trying to say. I learned to tone down the figurative language in favor of more organized thoughts and making the words meld together so that I could provide a vivid description of an important point or example. I also learned to think more about re-reading my own work to know what I’ve done poorly so that I may revise it. What is of particular note is the change from my first draft to my final. The first draft was basically a freewriting session composed of lots of figurative language smashed into one colossal paragraph (which left my peers somewhat confused). By the time my third draft came around, I had toned down this figurative language in some places and attempted to enhance it in others so that the paper remains rhetorically strong while at the same time delivering exactly the message it was designed to.

I began this essay with no real strategy for writing the paper, so I decided to free write and see what would come out. What came out was the basis for much of the descriptive language that I would throw into the paper. Unfortunately, I used this language too liberally which led to a semi-mediocre final product. Even when I had the feedback to apply, I misused my discretion and did not take the fixes far enough which shot down my final draft somewhat.

I am far from perfect and some things still need to be worked on. For instance, my word choices in some places were too redundant which, in some ways, dulled the figurative language and interfered with the flow of the paper. For instance, one line looks something like this:

“The most that I could do was point out the insane stupidity of literally everyone involved in the story”.

“Insane stupidity” fails to fully capture the idea that I was trying to get across and, as a result, fails to add to the paper. There were a few other spots such as this one:

“Following the plot was simple to follow only because it couldn’t possibly have been overly written or ruined by how abominable all of the characters were.”

Such redundancy damaged the paper and needs to be better removed in future papers. Furthermore, worrying about creating a rhetorical image should come second to the content of the paper which must be clean. If there is excess, it must be thoroughly trimmed to avoid such problems as the above statement remaining in the final paper.

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