I feel that over this first and second semester in college my writing skills have developed tremendously. I felt that in college you are constantly writing essays for different subjects about once every week. In which your vocabulary and your skills to write essays have changed in ways that I cannot explain but are visible in my writing. Before I wouldn’t make sense when writing my paragraph they wouldn’t flow. It kind of felt like a robot was reading my essay. I would say that in this semester particularly I have gotten better at not summarizing but learning to take part of the text and making it my own while still adding evidence. Not going to say that I still don’t summarize I do but I am catching myself when I am. I am taking information from the text and learning to analyze what is being expressed.  

I’ve also gotten better at developing a  stance in my essay but also making sure that I keep it throughout the essay. It’s very easy to start with your opinion and give evidence to whichever side you choose but towards the middle and the end you start losing not only yourself but the reader. I have written essays where I drag it out where people get lost and don’t understand my point. Not only does that bore the reader but it also makes the reader question what was the point of the writer. For example in my opinionated editorial, my stance was weddings should not Have plus ones. It’s a very straightforward to-the-point argument but I just kept dragging it out, and I kind of lost myself while writing it. If it wasn’t for me going back and editing it and having the opinions of my peers and professor it would be something truly boring for the audience.  

During the semester something that truly helped me was having the opinion of my peers.  I think it was an amazing idea to post the essay in the discussion area. Not only do people have the choice to read your essay but they also can comment directly to you things they liked or things that you should fix or suggestions in general. I have had professors Where they assigned you a specific person to read your essay and that’s awesome but it becomes more of a requirement having to read the essay than something interesting where as soon as you read the title you want to keep reading. Most of the time I fix my essay because of the comments that I get. It’s not just coming from the professor but it was coming from other students who are having similar mistakes.

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