If you had asked me before taking the ERH 101 and 102 courses what I thought I needed to work on most with my writing, I probably would have given you the usual answer. Something along the lines of “my grammar” or “organizing my paragraphs.”

Both of which are valid responses, but they would not been a truthful or accurate response in my case. My original response would not be meant to deceive. The honest the fact is that I never truly put any thought into it. This would limit me from providing an answer. For me it was always the same response, edit grammar or focus on my five-paragraph structure. I didn’t think deeper. This coincidentally is my exact issue. I fail to elaborate and go further.

Before ERH 101 and 102 I thought I was being clear and elaborating. I had never had any reason to believe differently. Imagine if you were sitting in a theatre watching a movie, and right as the climax begins to form and you are at the edge of your seat the director abruptly cuts the scene and the movie ended. This is how you can imagine reading one of my earlier papers would be like. I began to realize that sitting there and typing wasn’t nearly enough to get my thought process flowing in the direction that I needed it to go. I needed a new strategy.

“If the United States implemented a system similar to this I believe it would help raise not only the generally education of the population, but change the lives of many in ways that could benefit us all.” (The price you pay) In that statement I mention changing the system to that of the Europeans, but I make no mention as to how specifically. In the next paragraph I continue onto my conclusion completely leaving my previous statement open ended and lacking elaboration.

Like every paper before, a meeting was held with my professor to review my progress and answer any question that I had. I understood the assignment but was still uncertain about what exactly the paper was asking. Mr Hamilton asked me a few basic questions’ what audience was I trying to reach, and what was my goal. This spurred instant conversation as thoughts began to flow out.. During all of this he pointed out thatI was physically able to tell him what I intended to write. I just needed to put down on the paper what I was saying. I was able to start getting my thoughts across fully without actually realizing it.

Another break through that helped me co me to tis realization with my writing was a meeting that I scheduled with the writing center. I showed up with a printed out copy of my second paper of this Fall semester ready to be altered and edited. When I showed up to my meeting the first thing she had me do was begin reading what I had thus far out loud. She would mostly sit there quietly while I critiqued myself as I read on. We only stopped for short moments during the reading to edit sentence structure and wording. It was not until the very end that she asked me to clarify a few things. Like my professor had stated earlier in the year. She would ask what exactly I meant and for further elaboration on points that I thought were already solid. Once again leading me to explaining out loud, and bettering my writing information.