I think that my believing paper, even though I haven’t received the grade back yet, was a successful paper for me. I was able to find a lot of information and I didn’t have much trouble putting words to the paper. After finishing it I thought it to be my best essay so far this semester and in learned multiple things through writing it that led me to think this highly of it. In writing the believing paper I learned the importance of clearly identifying the opposing side and understanding their position to successfully find common ground between both sides of our argument. In this I saw how much stronger an argument can be if you find that point where it strengthens your side and allows the opposition to see that your argument, although an opposing one, still has good stance to support what they believe in/are arguing for as well. I was able to do this a couple times in my paper this time around and I think it made for a much stronger and convincing argument which is a big factor in my confidence with my final product. I also learn quite a bit about my topic as well. I had already known a bit about it but going on the specific points I made in this paper it further increased my knowledge on the subject. For example I didn’t know marijuana could be such a successful treatment for PTSD and neither did I know that the medications currently being used as treatment worked as poorly as they do. A really surprising thing I learned in writing this paper is that both Colorado’s crime and murder rate decreased significantly following their legalization of marijuana. I don’t believe that was something many people expect and it serves as good evidence to support legalization federally. Once again I believe I found a good amount of success in this paper and I feel that the things I learned in writing it will help me wit future papers.

• fulfill course requirements to get a passing grade in the class.
• talk about criticism and how you take it and improve it

1. spread out the writing over time, don’t try to do it all in one day;
2. in terms of needing to write something I can apply my improved knowledge on structuring the paper and having a good solid theses that binds the paper together
3. I feel confident in my ability to research a topic and make a strong paper or argument with use of the research i collected
4. the fact that sometimes I use to much “fillers” which causes the paper to be a little too lengthy or containing to much unneeded stuff, the way I can fix that is by re reading my essay over multiple times and learning to remove any excess that just prolongs an already solid statement.

In the process of writing the doubting essay I learned that there are multiple ways to go about writing an argumentative paper. In those options there lies the casual, categorical, and the ethical arguments. In my essay I took the approach of writing a categorical argument in which I laid out the criteria required of a proposed ban to be considered a good an effective ban against assault weapons in the United States. While writing this essay I was able to learn more about the how to create a list of criteria correctly so that you can make a strong argument as well as how much stronger using a method, such as the categorical method, makes your argument. When it came to researching for my argument I learned that its best to research the issue itself of which you are dealing with first. In doing this it helps you to see exactly what you might need to address and it can also help a lot when researching things for your argument. Having researched the issue first can give you better ideas for points you should research and implement into your argument and also what information you use/criteria you make will be the most effective and or important to your argument. Besides things I learned about writing an argumentative essay I also learned a few things about my issue of gun control. One of which was that there was a previous assault weapons ban active in the nation, which also ended up being a useful piece of information in my essay.

In writing my essay I will be taking a policy proposal approach. I will be doing a policy proposal because my topic is on that of legalizing marijuana which is an issue on the national level. I will also be using a cause claim strategy to help argue my point. The strategy of using the cause claim will be useful because the legalization of marijuana will lead to many good consequences. I feel that in making these choices about writing this essay will help me to make the best of the information I gather as well as the arguments I form.