Parting Thoughts

I learned a lot about myself as a writer and writing in general this semester. My writing style has changed, albeit slightly, for the better. One thing I improved upon a lot was my ability to connect Point A with Point B. Prior to this class, I tended to write with reckless abandon, and wrote things as I thought of them, rather then tying the points together fluidly. Another big thing I learned was APA style, and both my love and hatred for it. I enjoy the thoroughness that comes with writing an APA style paper, making your points overtly clear, but the format and amount of effort leaves something to be desired. All in all, I am glad I took this class, and I am proud of the work and improvements I have accomplished.

Final Draft Reflection

I am very proud of how my revision piece turned out. I enjoyed the personal aspect I could put into this piece of work, and I am also glad that my piece could help ease new college students' fears upon entering college. My favorite aspect of my piece is the dramatic build up for the first day of class. The new scenery, the new environment, the thoughts and worrys all drawn out.... I swear you can almost hear my chattering teeth!

Revision Piece

I chose my first semester of college narrative as my revision piece. I chose this piece because it was the most personal writing I had done in class. Writing about personal experiences help me with imagery and allow me to have some fun with my writings, telling my story in my own personal writing tone,helping me understand myself better as a writer.

Literacy and Writing Priorities

Literacy has been an important topic in my family for as long as I can remember. Many of my earliest memories were my mom or dad reading to me and my brothers and sister. We would take turns looking over the pages, filling in words when we were cued. If we were correct, we were praised; if we weren't, we were politely asked for a second attempt. As the days went on. we all developed into very literate individuals. Writing was not as much of a priority for most of my young years, the belief being a good writer comes from good reading comprehension and studying grammatical rules in context.

Short Project Thoughts

I feel my short project was very successful. The freedom to choose a medium made my project fairly simple and fun. I picked a blog for my topic of martial arts for 2 reasons; It was a way to communicate casually with interested readers, and blogs and the internet in general are usually where uninformed readers seek information from. Knowing my subject as well as I do made it both fun and easy to do this assignment.

Short Project

I chose to do a blog for my short project on martial arts. I chose this medium in an effort to make the information easily accessible and understood for my intended audience. I have a good start on it, but I am most likely going to add a couple more specific examples of the subjects touched on. I feel elaborating and showing more evidence for each topic will make everything clearer and more credible.

APA style and learning

This essay was quite the learning experience to me as both a writer and a researcher. This was my first paper that was written in APA format, and it taught me a lot about scientific approaches towards research. The breakdown of the different sections and the quality of sources necessary for this style of research taught me how to be more analytical and critical with my information. The writing also was a big style change for me. It taught me how to be more in depth with a topic then I thought possible. When I first heard the 8-10 page length, I was shocked, but as I followed the steps and filled in my sections, I realized that it wasn't so bad once you put the effort in.

Important revisions

As I continue to research my draft, I find more and more interesting information that pulls the reader in. Based on class review and peer review, I continue to focus more on explanations of my research that paints a picture and explains, rather then sheer facts and statistics. In this draft and future works, I am going to continue to play with the creative approach I have been following.

First draft struggles

More often then not, I have a lot more difficulty starting a draft then writing it. It's hard for me to narrow my topic enough to meet standards, leaving me with several quality topics that I must choose between. In fact, I spend probably double the amount of time thinking about where to start and what to use then I do actually writing the draft. In the future, I will do my best to attempt to just get working and write my draft, even if it's wrong. I need to remember that the first draft isn't the end-all, final product, and should not be treated as such. After all, if we were expected to have perfection on our first draft, we wouldn't have peer editing and revising, would we?

Research processes

When I research topics for an assignment or paper, I tend to get pretty stressed out and nitpicky. I worry about how credible my sources are, what topic to settle on, what i think is expected of me. When I research for my own personal desire to learn, it's a lot less stressful. I tend to look for overviews, seek other's opinions and updates on the subject, and look for interesting infromation on the topic. Although the former is more stressful and time consuming, I feel that it's much more effective, as my focus is for a grade in a class. When everything is said and done, between the two methods, researching for an assignment leaves me with way more information and understanding on a topic.

Argument paper reflection

This paper was an very informative learning experience. I discovered that I can be very influential and professional with my tone, based on my peer review comments. This makes me more confident in my works. On the other hand, I discovered that I am a poor writer of letters when starting out, because choosing an audience was an ordeal for me. Several options sounded good, and I couldn't decide what to go with. After I picked my audience, however, it all fell into place. This shows me that in future essays and writings, I need to be more certain of myself and just pick a topic, even if I have to flip a coin to do so.

Revisions and decisions

Revisions are a sticking point in my writing. I feel that my first draft is my most natural work, since it's the draft I created from scratch. When I write my first draft, my ideas flow out without any filter or worry about general conventions or specifics for the assignment. While revising of my works makes a difference in clarity and tone, I am headstrong about my pieces of writing. It takes a lot more effort for me to revise what I've already written, because it's my original thoughts, and I feel that some revisions I need to do take away from my originality. Overall, I like the revision process for clarity reasons, but I'd prefer more abstract and open assignments, where specific conventions aren't as important.

First draft issues

The first draft of a paper is always the most difficult for me to write. I have a tendency to get hung up on assignment guidelines, rereading them over and over again, wondering what specifically is being asked for. I overlook the fact that it's a first draft, and it gives me a mental lock on what to write on. This happens continually, until the day before it's due, and I unload a bunch of thoughts onto a piece of paper and call it a first draft. This time is different though, because I failed entirely to eek out a first draft, due to a combination of procrastination and hectic life events. Way to go Adam! Speaking of which, I'm gonna get working on that right now.

The joys of writing...

Writing for a class is more often then not a chore. Being assigned a task to write about usually leaves little room for creativity and individuality. But sometimes, you can luck out and have some freedom with your topic choice. When you can choose a topic, the possiblitities are endless. You have freedom on what you decide to write about, and that takes a lot of the burden off of writing the paper. Last semester, I got to choose a topic for an argumentative paper, and I landed on the issue of racial double standards. Even though it was a touchy subject to write about, I managed to create a great paper. I got to speak about my opinions and critisisms about the way the media and culture has shifted in regards to race and racism, and got to convey my examples of the double standards that shine through all the fluff in the media. It was one of the few times I was proud to be writing, and the only time I was waiting eagerly to present my work. To this day, I still have it saved on my computer, and have debated on whether to add to it and post it in a blog or on some other format that the general public can see. This paper showed me the joys and fun you can have with writing; editing and researching for hours was never as rewarding as this.

School, Credits and Grades, OH MY!

Oh the joys of college: Worrying about homework, cramming for exams, aiming for "good grades." The latter is what really amuses me. Most college students I have encountered used good grades as a motive for being in school. Does this even need to be stated? No one enters college with hopes of failing out, last time I checked. For that matter, what do they mean by good grades? 4.0? Passing all classes? Getting at least the C for the transfer? It varies from person to person, but I like the standard I aim for: Putting forth my best effort for starters. If I do it half-cocked and in a hurry, I expect the grades to show. I aim for at least a B, but try hard for my 4.0 every semester. Newsflash to slackers: Aiming for a C is beneath you, go for the gusto. I'm telling you, aiming for the top and trying for the A really helps you feel good about what you're doing.

Go for the A. Enough said.