As the semester comes to a close, I look back on the writing assignments I have completed. I contemplate my successes and my struggles in completing each one. My successes involved the use of pre-writing tools to organize my ideas. This was a struggle that I had last semester and was the center of discussion in last semester’s essay. By implementing them this semester, I have improved my ability as a writer and have a feeling of achievement because I actually addressed one of my weaknesses and improved upon it. However, a struggle that I noticed this semester is my ability to use transitions to connect the various parts within each of the writing assignments. This has been a recurring problem, which I also noticed in my writing last semester. This struggle really manifested in the research paper I wrote this semester. My instructor brought it to my attention when she was reviewing one of my rough drafts. She emphasized on the importance of using proper transitions to piece together the various parts of the argument I was presenting in the research paper. This struggle with transitions and its effects on the writing assignments of this semester will be the focus of my paper. I hope to use this reflection to improve on my future endeavors in the world of writing.
Before I discuss the struggles I have noticed this semester, I want provide a couple examples of how my use of pre-writing tools has helped improve my writing this semester. Their largest assistance has helped me get over what I call “the blank page”. Last semester and even in high school, I would always dread opening Microsoft word and seeing that flashing cursor and a
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blank white page. Before my use of pre-writing all I would have is a bunch of ideas bouncing around in my head and no real written organization of them in an outline. This semester I always used brainstorming and outlining to organize these ideas so I would have something to make reference to when I faced that blank page. For example, I wrote two or three outlines for my research paper, “The Road to Recovery”, to straighten out all my peer reviewed articles and how I would integrate the information they provided. Pre-writing tools also helped me a great deal as I struggled to find some main points to research that related to my topic for “Road to Recovery”. By brainstorming and writing multiple outlines I was able to discover sub-topics to research. For “The Road to Recovery”, I performed a brainstorming session where I wrote down anything I could think of that fit my topic. I then used this list to find peer reviewed articles with information I could use. Pre-writing tools have definitely made my writing process easier just in this semester alone. I think that the more I use them I will discover more and more benefits.
Even though I made improvements in my use of pre-writing from last semester, this semester I found myself struggling with the use of transitions. When first considering how transitions are used, I would begin with how to transition from idea to idea. These types of transitions connect the thesis statement and opening paragraph to each of the main points that support this thesis statement. The transitions then connect these to the concluding paragraph. When these transitions are used properly, all these main parts of a writing assignment are connected together and a reader can clearly see the main ideas expressed by the writer. As I was working on my writing assignments this semester and last semester I had trouble making these idea to idea transitions. In our first writing assignment, I wrote about a trip my father and I took to the Grand Canyon titled “Cross Country Experience”. In this assignment I had trouble
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connecting the highlights of the trip with fluidity. I also noticed this problem to be more apparent as the length of the writing assignment increased. In “The Road to Recovery”, which had a minimum of 2000 words, connection and transition between each part of my supporting evidence became increasingly difficult. Through reviewing and revising my rough drafts as well as considering the comments given during review sessions, I was able to correct most of these idea to idea transitions. I consider them to be the most difficult for me of the three types of transitions.
After the main ideas of the writing assignment have been tied together, I moved on to establishing transitions between paragraphs. Compared to the idea to idea transitions, these transitions were easier to work on and didn’t require as much work to remedy. However, paragraph to paragraph transitions were still difficult in their own way. Making a paragraph to paragraph transition requires that you refer back to the previous graph and use transitional phrases such as “ In regards to” or “ Concerning this”. The difficult for me in making these transitions would always arise in the wording. I also found it difficult to not be repetitive with my transitional phrases throughout the duration of a paper. For example, in “Cross Country Experience” a favorite transitional word I used was “as”. I also found difficulty in finding what part or idea from the previous paragraph to transition with. Usually I would try and fix these transitions by examining the opening sentence of each paragraph between my introduction and conclusion. Then I would see how these sentences connected to the previous paragraph.
After I had connected my main ideas and my paragraphs I began to explore my sentence to sentence transitions. These transitions as the ones that are used to engage and guide the reader. Their proper use will keep the reader interested and allow them to read from start to finish without having to pause and read something a second time. In “Road to Recovery” I had trouble
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in discussing the opposing view with clarity and when I was in the revising process I found a few places where I needed to clarify some information. These sentence to sentence transitions are similar in difficulty to the idea to idea transitions because it takes a lot of work to discover and fix both of them. To fix these sentence to sentence transitions I would have to read through my entire writing assignment very carefully and slowly, pondering each sentence as I read it. For the research assignments, “Road to Recovery”, I read it over many times, each time finding a better way to transition between sentences to tighten up my paragraphs and my paper as a whole. In fact I actually found that reading the writing assignment out loud made this revision process even more efficient. This way I could hear each sentence and was better able to identify a misplaced transition or a lack of one.
Out of the writing assignments from this semester, I believe that I used transitions the best in the research assignment. I believe this is the case because the length and quantity of information being presented in “Road to Recovery” required that I use these transitions to the best of my ability. As I mentioned previously, I also revised “Road to Recovery” many times before I arrived at the finished product, perfecting my transitions with each revision. So, basically, the amount of time spent in revision and the necessity of the transitions is what really made “Road to Recovery” the best example of my use of transitions this semester.
Transitions may seem like a very small part of a bigger picture when writing. Things like an interesting topic may seem to take priority. However, I believe that with the proper use of idea to idea, paragraph to paragraph, and sentence to sentence transitions even the most boring topic can be made to be engaging. These transitions establish a “flow” that connects the entire writing assignment. If this “flow” can be established, then a writer has done their job. I’m glad I was
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able to discover my difficulty with transitions. Realizing them as one of my weaknesses when writing has allowed me to pay closer attention to how I use them. As I look to the future, I believe that if I continue to improve my transitions and my use of pre-writing my writing skill will increase exponentially.