Eliza's Writing Self Assessment

Being able to construct a thesis statement that includes more than just the literary assessment of a work of literature is something that I've been able to get better at because of this class. This was probably the biggest difference that I noticed in my writing from the beginning of this class to now. Previously, I would construct a very cut and dry thesis, that was followed by a paper that was equally as black and white. It would very simply say two or three literary aspects of the piece I was about to analyze, and what the conclusion was. This led to zero surprises in the paper. Of course, readers shouldn't be blindsided by what is written anyway, but the way I used to write thesis statements made the entirety of the paper essentially developed in the thesis alone, leaving little room for growth and depth throughout the rest of the paper. And if there was any from of further evaluation on the analyzation than it was a little bit confusing.

Adding on to that same idea, another ability of mine that has developed throughout the last semester is the ability to write a thesis that not only is broader and more clear than what I was previously able to accomplish, but I am able to write a thesis that is deeper, and that pulls more meaning out of a work of literature right from the beginning - providing new thoughts for the readers, and dividing even an educated audience.

Another aspect of my writing ability that developed was my ability to write concisely the thoughts that I want to say. It has always been a weakness of mine to find precisely the right words to convey what I am trying to say, which always led to lengthy papers that were all over the place. But through the different developmental writing that we did with the various papers in this class, I found myself being able to write a shorter, and overall better paper, than my previously long winded work.

I loved involving others in the writing process. There are some major benefits of social inclusion in the writing process. I have found that ideas developed in my mind, and then shared with others, have the opportunity to develop even more through my own words, but also through the thoughts of other people. I have had some of the most fascinating conversations not only with classmates, but with my peers, and those closest to me as well. I found myself excited to continue writing about what my current topic was, because I wanted to develop my own thoughts more, to be able to share them with other people. One aspect of my life that paired well with this during this time, was that I've been in a long distance relationship for the majority of the semester, meaning that the main activity between me and my significant other was talking. And we talked about ideas, and topics, and literature, and so many aspects of this class, it was really enjoyable, and brought us closer together, and helped me become a better writer.

Another aspect of my writing ability that was developed throughout the course of this class was the ability to use sources. Wow. This has made a major difference in my ability as a writer. Google was my go to, and my main source of inspiration for a lot of my work - before this class. Now, my mind and my computer tabs have been opened to a whole new world of sources, particularly the informal sources. There is so much to be found through the media, through pictures, through reddit discussions, and things like that, that are contributors to the literary world!

Rowen's Writing Self-Assessment

Looking at my initial self-assessment, I personally feel like I didn't improve that much. It's hard to tell though, given the amount of writing we've done in this class. I wanted to become more efficient in my writing, and to an extent I think I did accomplish that, but not in the way I expected. I wanted to learn to effectively communicate ideas without being to flowery, but I think the way I improved the most throughout this semester was generating specific ideas that were easier to communicate efficiently.

I am very detail-oriented when it comes to writing, so much so in fact that I often get lost in those details. I spend way too much introducing topics and concepts that don't matter and aren't necessarily relevant to what I'm talking about. Since I developed a habit early on of developing a thesis based on research, rather than the other way around, my thesis development reflected the research I was doing. I learned a lot of really interesting, valuable things, but often I think my papers were more explorations of the things I learned than actual analysis. As such, they were often large, unwieldy things that didn't really go anywhere valuable. The lack of payoff  I think contributed to how wordy they seemed. It seems funny to me now because in my original self-assessment I said "While I am confident in my ability to arrange ideas on a macro level . . . I am less confident in my ability to arrange those individual pieces" it seems like what I was struggling with was actual what I was confident in- my details were often fine, but they didn't lead me anywhere, and since they didn't lead me anywhere, they felt fluffy and useless.

Professor Burton helped me to understand better the ways in which my theses were lacking in our individual meetings. At each meeting we held, he pointed out the ways in which I introduced concepts didn't necessarily communicate what I wanted them to, and therefore made the rest of the paper quite confusing. In the last paper, I made a concerted effort to create a focused and clear introduction and thesis, which I think is what enabled me to write the rest of the paper. Writing it the first time was insanely difficult; each sentence felt like I was pulling teeth to even get an idea onto the document, and it never felt right or good enough. Having a clear direction and a solid body of research to back me up really helped in this regard.

Regarding informal sources, I have very mixed feelings. I think one of the things that inhibited my ability to talk about my text in our penultimate paper was the reliance on informal sources. Since there wasn't a lot said on my text, and what little was said about the genre as well as the text didn't really add anything new or interesting to the discussion (the conversation about AI has kind of been done to death), informal sources didn't really add very much. They were much more helpful in the final paper. Even though I didn't use all of them, seeing how community opinions and thoughts reflected or conflicted with concepts in the research was really interesting.

Annie's Writing Self-Assessment

My favorite part of writing my final paper was bringing various sources together and seeing how they relate to each other. It was really fun to pull from many different places, and I just enjoyed watching how my sources came together in my final paper.

Looking back on my initial self-assessment I feel like I’ve come to look forward to and appreciate editing and revision which is a big turnaround for me from the beginning of semester. I’ve learn to take these steps more seriously and utilize them in my writing process. I a lot more time for this now when I am composing a paper.

I think where I would like to improve is more quickly working my way through writer’s block. Meaning if I can’t find the right path to follow with my essay from the start, it can take a long time to get going and to bring things together cohesively. I’ve learned some strategies from this class about getting around that which have been helpful, but I feel like at times I get in my own way. I heard this quote recently that talks about how in a good story, you get out of the way and let it tell itself, and I think to some extent this can be applied to academic writing. I love outlining but sometimes I just struggle in the transfer. In the future, after I’ve done my planning, I want to focus on just getting out of my own way and writing. If I get stuck somewhere I want to be able to just more quickly move forward and work around it.

I feel like this semester has helped me deep dive into the researching process. I have a lot more avenues, a lot more tools in my belt, for finding sources and doing good research. I think it was very helpful learning to incorporate informal sources into our research. Especially for well-known pieces of literature I feel that informal sources are important to take into account. Since a lot of my papers were based on a more obscure work, it was hard to find a lot of variety in informal sources but using this avenue helped to me to find some paintings that helped me a lot in my papers. There are some other things that I’ve come to discover are really important in my writing process. One of these is to outline my ideas specifically with pen and paper, doing this seems to just make things click for me and helps me to be more cohesive in my writing. I also have been converted to reading my papers out loud during the editing and revision process. Reading out loud and also talking things out as I was writing my papers helped me to find clarity in my writing. Also during this semester, I realized how much I enjoyed writing personal essays and I would like to use this mode again in the future. Going forward I plan on using these new habits in my future writing.

Hannah's Writing Self-Assessment

What I most dreaded about my final paper was actually what turned out to be the most enjoyable. I had never incorporated non-academic sources into a paper before and so I was really apprehensive to try. Yet I found that when I began to look for inspiration in pictures and other media I was able to come up with some really original ideas that made me even more excited to continue to write my paper. Although not all sources were quoted in my paper, there were many that guided me to the claim that I wanted to make. I am definitely going to continue to use the internet as a place to seek inspiration for future papers. It also inspired me to seek out adaptions of the different books that I really love, even if I am not currently writing about them. It is really interesting to me to be able to understand other people’s interpretations of a text.

At the beginning of the semester I noticed that I was struggling with transitions in my writing. I do feel that I have improved in this aspect of my writing as I have been able to be more social in my writing process. It really helped to have someone else give feedback and help me notice different places that might be unclear. I especially felt like I was able to use good transitions after I read my paper out loud. As I read vocally to someone else I was hyper-aware of the clarity in my paper and was able to add transitions where needed. 

I feel that this semester I was able to gain a lot of feedback about supporting my thesis in my papers. Although I felt somewhat confident in my ability to provide analysis and support in my papers at the beginning of the semester I learned that I can continue to improve on this aspect. I want to work on this in my future papers and be able to fully convince my audience of my argument because of the support in my paper. 

Overall, this semester helped me branch out from my usual writing style. It helped me realize that there are more ways than just rereading and editing my papers to get feedback and improve my writing. It helped me engage in dialogue about writing and about editing, which I realized I really like doing! It is fun to be able to talk about ideas and get excited about my paper when others are excited about it also. I look forward to using the things that I have learned in this class in my future semester here at BYU and beyond. 

Alyssa's Writing Self-Assessment

Over the course of this semester, my writing has certainly improved. Back in January, I noted that my main weakness was my inability to really sit down and put words on the page in a timely manner before the due date. While I definitely still struggled with that aspect of the writing process, I was more focused this semester on making it less of a struggle. The thing that helped me the most to overcome this weakness was writing down what my primary claim was for each paper. This gave me a clear direction to take my ideas, and made it easier for me to make an outline and talk about the most important parts of my argument with the help of specific sources that supported what I was saying. In this last paper especially, I feel that my ideas were more clearly outlined because I had a clear thesis statement, making it possible for me to start the essay with a better sense of direction and organization. 

Though I made considerable progress in focusing my ideas and hence in making it easier for me to find the motivation to start writing, I found that I still have other areas to improve upon in the writing process. In particular, I saw that I have the tendency to write long, flowing sentences without a break in between to let my reader take a mental breath of air. This is a challenge that I’ve been aware of, but it hadn’t been quite so obvious to me as when I was editing this final paper. I had to cut out several sections to make my paragraphs more comprehensible and concise. 

One of the  most enjoyable parts about researching and writing the final paper for this class for me was learning how to use the resources available to us through the BYU library, as well as through the other non-scholarly sources on the internet. I loved finding books on obscure aspects of Anglo-Saxon society that enriched my understanding of how the text I analyzed fit in to the community, and it was a true blessing to find the full performance of a play that related directly to the subjects I focused on. It was really fun to read and watch other people’s interpretations and reactions to the literature I was studying, especially when the people talking about it were just including it in their regular discourse. 

Something that I really think helped me to formulate my ideas about the texts I analyzed in the final paper was just talking about it with my friends and family. Even though I already had the ideas in my head, it helped to explain them to someone else and get their feedback and perspective. It also made me feel like I wasn’t just writing for the sake of writing, but that someone out there might have genuine interest in what I was writing about. Their support and enthusiasm made me get even more excited about my paper so that it felt less like an assignment for a class and more like a personal project that I wanted to invest in.

Maddi's Writing Self-Assessment

Throughout the semester my writing developed in many ways, but I think the most substantial improvement was that it became more focused towards my ideas. I learned how to incorporate many different types of sources and arguments, as well as theories, to enhance my argument and make it more focused on the subject, while still maintaining my style of writing. At the beginning of the semester I expressed that I could easily stay organized with research papers, but that a formulaic approach submerged my voice within my papers. With being able to use a variety of sources and theories, my ideas were able to flourish well beyond a strict formalist approach. I feel that I learned how to blend professionalism with my style in my writings!

The most enjoyable part of drafting my final paper was seeing all the things I had practiced throughout the semester come together. I felt very uncomfortable using contemporary and informal sources at the beginning of the semester, and it was fun to see my final product and how they enhanced my argument by adding depth to it. This type of source didn’t seem to fit the professional lens that I viewed research papers with, and I wasn’t sure how to incorporate them effectively. However, I learned how to use them to modernize my arguments, and to introduce me to different claims that I previously wouldn’t have considered. I used blogs and forums, pictures and YouTube videos, as well as play reviews to bring shape into my argument about “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Moving forward, I’ll be much more willing to bring these aspects into my writing. I was surprised to see how they didn’t distract from my professional voice in my paper, but as I began to be more familiar with using them, they made my paper feel relatable and current.

I was also unsure how to use form to create an intriguing argument within my research, but it ended up being a large focus of my final paper, as I became more comfortable articulating how the author portrayed different ideas within the text. Learning how to use general sources helped me gain confidence in this region. I do feel this is one of my strongest skills in my writing now! However, I also know I’m weak in my social aspects of writing. It is still easy for me to keep my head down and work, however I did get better at branching out. I used comments from my peers on my blog posts, discussions we had in class and through our peer reviews, and even the librarian to help me develop my paper. These resources definitely helped my paper a lot, and really encouraged me to bring my voice into my writing, and I am beginning to feel more comfortable using them. Unfortunately, I do see myself being more hesitant to use these resources in the future, therefore I want to develop greater habits of being social with my writing!

Dylan's Writing Self Assessment

In this class, one of the most important things that I have learned, in my opinion, is the ability to properly plan out and write an essay. For me, this means setting apart a certain window of time for me to write and then just writing. Too often I spend way more time than I need to working on my rough draft. In this class I learned how to simply write and worry about fixing all of the little things afterward. I honestly believe that this has not only helped me write faster, but better as I left behind my worries about what was on the paper at the beginning of the process and instead just writing at first.
In my research process, I've enjoyed learning so much more about how to do research well. Before this class, my research was mostly just searching through the main database and choosing what looked good. Not only have I learned how to find sources more efficiently, but I've learned what sources are actually valuable sources for my research. Just gaining that useful knowledge has been fun for me and I know that makes me sound like a nerd, but I made it to college somehow.
Looking back on where I was at the beginning of the semester, I've already improved greatly at my skill to write rough drafts and research more effectively. Even just my skill at writing has improved overall just from writing so much. I still need to work on my ability to stay on task in a longer paper though. For example in a long paper I have a tendency to go off on tangents in order to fill in all of the space that I need to fill in. I could see myself doing this in my last paper as well. Even when I recognize it, I still struggle because I can't tell when I am going off on a tangent or just expanding on my argument. I have gotten better at balancing context and analysis though.
Through the semester, I have really enjoyed some of the aspects of our social writing process. Sharing my rough draft has been extremely helpful in my writing process and has made sure that my final drafts actually sound like final drafts. Mostly the rest of the social writing processes have helped me stay on schedule with the essays. It was difficult sometimes to benefit from looking at other people's processes because oftentimes we all approached things very differently. Although I still learned things through this, in my opinion it wasn't very significant. With online or informal sources I found it very difficult to use this in my essays. I could use them, a lot of times with a lot of effort, as a jumping point for other more formal research or topics, but for me it was very difficult to use them for brainstorming.