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.