Reflection

Reflection for Unit 1

After writing my first college level essay I learned that this college writing class is not as easy as everyone says it is. Grammar is very important, and I learned that detail on everything is very essential. A paper is only good if full detail is given on everything and elaboration is stressed on all details so that the reader can get a full experience on what the writer is trying to get across. One must assume as if the reader almost knows nothing about the topic that one is writing about, but not too much to make them feel like you think that they are dumb and cause the paper to be boring. Another important aspect of writing that I learned after my first draft is to try to pull the reader in the beginning by a quote or story to catch their attention and make the essay easier to read. It is very important to do this and not list or state facts in the beginning to start it off as a boring paper. I did this in my first paper and on my rewrite, and I think that I need to change it on my next draft. I do not like how in the beginning of my paper I gave my definition of what identity is. I feel if I’m going to do that I should do that later on in the introduction not in the first sentence. I also learned how I need to explain my claim more. My definition of identity did not really flow with the rest of the paper. This caused the essay’s flow to be somewhat random. I threw in everything all together and did not really have a set sequence of events that I should have had. I also noticed how many times I gave a different definition of identity and did not stick to one way or elaborated on each. I had some good stories to tell in attempt to catch the reader in but I could have referenced them more such as my reference to my teacher’s project that I had done in high school and how it affected me into making my career decisions for the future. I feel that my biggest problem in writing this essay was my overuse of the word “and” and my punctuations to create complex sentences. I need to try to make everything more concrete and shorten my sentences to not make prolonged. Grammar and detail was probably my biggest problems in this paper. Now that I have noticed what I have done twice I feel like my next paper will be better if I apply everything that I missed. My story is good and interesting and has plenty of reason, but it still needs more elaboration and flow so that the paper is not random and can pull the reader in and not leave them lost. I think I am going to rewrite this paper because this is a topic that I can elaborate more on and will keep me interested and I feel that I can make it a lot better by making my claim stronger, and strengthening my stories and references to other people.