Bolton 1

This semester proved to be one that was both trialing and awarding. Coming into College Writing more than 2 weeks after put me at a disadvantage compared to my fellow classmates. It was cause by a mishandling of my schedule. This dilemma ultimately made me play catch-up for the majority of the month. Rather than detour me from my goals this in turn motivated me in improving and developing my craft as a distinguished writer. With our first essay in progress entitled Happiness it was going through the first stages of development. At this point I had missed the stage of the first draft but was confident in my abilities to produce a paper with quality in the end. As the process drew on our professor had instructed us that we needed to translate out of the high school frame of mind with our writing. Things such as listing out our thesis for instance in my essay I wrote, Happiness can only be achieved by embracing other emotions such as regret, sadness, and anger. As we were told our thesis should not look like that at this level and that was only acceptable in high school for writing essays in a small amount of time given. This exposed me to the nuances of college work and how much time and effort needs to put in all work in general. When essays are given back they come with a grade as well as comments so we can improve on essays to come. The first few essays were a reality setter for most of us proving that our writing is not on par yet with higher education standards. Although the criticism was not welcomed at first I slowly came to terms with my problems as a writer and was open to censure.

Bolton 2

This in a lot of ways helped me to improve as the semester rolled on. Another form of this is peer edits and review, this was when a fellow classmates critiques one and anothers papers and the composer of the essay get to see their drafts through someone elses eyes. As people we are accustom to thinking their works are correct and without flaw, this bias is quickly uncovered when someone else reads it and flashing lights begin to show of mistakes that were not caught by our eyes. That is why criticism and edits had in turn pointed out mistakes that we made and helped us to fix it thus improving our writing. One of my neighbors in class caught that I was using a semi-colon out of context and should just went with a simple comma in several instances. For example when I was stating my sources I would say After examining the study; College Majors... In essence the writing center proved to be a great help. They not only helped me to fix minor bugs we also discussed ways in making it my paper better. This all contributed to the learning process. Also experienced throughout the semester is the use of class exercises. These exercises were great tools in getting us prepared for different essays. Also it gave me a better understanding of the topic at hand. In the midst of the developing our rumor essay to show how a rumor can effect different individuals we were placed in several groups. In the exercise conducted the phrase Dining Hall food contained laxatives was placed in several groups stationed around the class room. As the statement was said each group had to make a decision whether to believe said rumor or denounce it stating facts to support their claims. In my group in particular some people did not agree with the statement but was quickly overruled by the majority. This signifies that people conforms to a crowd. This further realization was used in my essay to further my claim of that specific essay. Whatever we did always tied back to the project at hand, this kept us on the right path throughout the semester. One of my main probably was not

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tying everything thing back together. In the beginning start my paragraphs straight to the point with, People should realize that working towards a goal might not be joyful(Happiness Essay) My points were well ordered and organized but I failed to include topic sentences and conclusion sentences at the end of every paragraph, overtime I grasp these concept and since then my writing has taken off to new heights. All in all, the class was satisfying as a whole; although it had its setbacks along the way I persevered and made myself a better writer for classes to come. Along the way I picked up different skills that further establish my thoughts in a nice and organized fashion. Making writing pleasurable and not a hassle like I once considered it to be.