Introduction to my  ERH101 Course this sememster:

My development of being a writer has changed this year significantly. I have developed the new skills to advance my writing into further detail than I could even imagine. Changing my writing style has been difficult. This semester I learned to organize, do multiple drafts, extend views further into the text, and generate a good paper using details that catch the reader’s eye.

Through the essays I saw the same patterns between my writing, which were grammatical, organizational and not doing enough drafts to start with. I wasn’t able to tell my grammatical errors before. Therefore minimizing the number of grammatical errors helps your paper be more professional. A specific example is the “VMI RAT” paper I noticed after re-reading and reading it aloud I didn’t have good flowing sentences, fragments, no clear sentences and small grammatical issues. Also this essay took me four drafts due to the fact I did not understand the prompt. Therefor by the final copy I was able to get my point across clear and concisely. The organization came with the essay   “

Country Music” this essay was called the “how to do essay”. I feel like it was designed to gain experience on how to organize in chronological order. This was difficult in the being because you needed to figure out what kind of readers you need to appeal to such as an older audience? Young? Experienced? Brand new audience?  I picked the brand new audience because this way the essay would be simple and easy to explain how to write a country song. The main goal for this essay was to teach us how to organize an essay that will make sense to a reader and show them what to do. Also it demonstrates the knowledge you have on the subject. Also the last essay helps show how we thought of our self as a writer. The writer I saw myself before this class was a non-confident writer who fell back on a lot of feed back from other people. But after this class I gained the confidence to know myself as a writer and not lean on others feed back as much as I use to. I was able to develop my work into stronger forms of writings. With this essay I was able to identify my weaknesses and strengths that I had gained through high school and at the college level. It helps to write about your past experiences in writing to understand were your strengths and weaknesses lay. One thing I learned from writing this essay was that I was able to comprehend the readings we did due to the fact my high school teacher was an amazing teacher and helped develop my skills early. I solidified my confidence in what I learned to do. I learned that if you come across confident you display that in your writing easier than not knowing what you are talking about.

Helpful hints when writing papers be specific, the more personal and informational you can make it the better off you will be. In all my essays the more descriptive it is the audience will be more engaged in your essay grabbing their intention instead of boring them with just straight facts. Make it interesting that’s the main advice I give. Also receive help when you do not understand the prompt of when you are reading. When it came to writing an ethno discourse paper, I will be honest I was so lost even after reading these types of essays. So what you do when that happens find your recourses, for me I used my professor, peers, and the Writing Center. They helped me identify the organizational issues and really understand what that type of paper this was about; also all the grammatical issues that came along with the rough drafts. Do not be afraid to ask for help.  When you ask for help you are allowing your knowledge on the subject to change and broaden. Broaden and compare your views when writing essays. Also what we did in class was the peer workshops, peer workshops help open up your subject. It introduces what is strong and weak in your essay that you are unable to identify yourself. So if you use these tips I think you have a better essay than you think. When I used these resources I was able to gain a better knowledge and know what I did wrong to adjust for the future.  Also be proud of your work that is written.

This whole semester I was developing as a writer more then I thought I did because I became more confident in my writing. Every time I wrote my next essay I felt like my word choice flow and concepts got stronger. After reflecting on all my essays this year and seeing what I need to change help me develop the skills to critique my own work to the point where I know it is a quality paper, easily understood and not a “crap shoot”. It was hard to critique my self at first but as soon as I got over the fact my writing is not the best out there I felt comfortable to look at it and make the necessary changes it needed to make my essay stronger. So overall this semester I think my writing has gotten stronger but can still use a lot of work!!