Ariel's Writing Self-Assessment

Regarding my writing, the biggest thing that’s changed throughout the course is how I format the paper itself. I’ve never been aware of this, but because of high school AP English, I found I default to writing in the format: introduction-paragraph-paragraph-paragraph-conclusion. It sounds dumb, I know. That’s how I’ve always written and how I’ve gone through college writing essays so far. No English or other professor has ever called me out on it before, and it’s probably one of the reasons I don’t like writing what I’m “forced” to write, why I’ve always preferred creative writing. Not only was it fun to have the freedom to write an essay on any book/play/poem we chose to write on – which did help me write this semester – but I was able to recognize how I write the exact same format for every essay I write since high school, and that I can write more than that. With the amount of sources we had to find in the final essay, I realized I could only use that many sources if I had more than just three body paragraphs, and had to find more than just three topics to analyze. Starting a new paragraph to allow for more sources also helped reduce the amount of repetition in my essays – although, somethings will never change, and I still do this. But without the constricting format of just maintaining a total of five paragraphs, I think my weakness of not liking what I’m told to write has decreased. If I can’t choose a topic, at least having multiple paragraphs can allow for more variety in what to write about in future essays.

My source-collecting habits are still the same: I found myself having much less difficulty making a massive Word document full of URL’s and quick side-notes by each. So, that’s something I will have to work on.

However, I liked how we spent time branching out of just peer-reviewed sources. In the past, I always hated that aspect of being “told” what to write, knowing I could find good blog posts covering my topics. Being allowed to take advantage of them was so much fun, and it was easier to find peer-reviewed sources after finding a great informal source for the final essay. I mean, I did get a little distracted at times, but the distraction meant I was at least still thinking about my topic AND having fun.

Being social helped me realize where my thesis was underdeveloped, and when I couldn’t describe my topic to someone, I knew I had to keep formatting it and saying it out loud until I could share it confidently.

Overall, I need to record my sources in a better format eventually, but my writing has evolved from formulaic to more substantial. I’m no longer able to just start writing an essay from intro to conclusion. Now, I do take time to find a variety of topics to write about, and I enjoy essays a little more. I hope that in the future I can also take advantage of informal sources again. But, I think I have gotten better after breaking out of the AP mold.

Thank you for everything!
-Ariel