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Alice Galoian
Professor Stephen Topf
English 114B
9 May 2014
My Work
To make my ideas more clear than it used to be, I had to read my essays more than once
to make my editing be more critical instead of just going over the grammatical mistakes. I had to
make sure I was going over the how of reading [which] is the central topic of current
information processing theories of reading (Heap 16). This means that through my surface
analysis of my essays, I realized that I need to be more interpretive and always ask why to the
statements that I make throughout my explanations. Through my experience this semester, I have
become less vague in my writings through the help of the essays because it made me overcome
the unclarity.
Through the assignments that were given, I have changed my writing style. Even when it
felt as though they would be no help, in the end I felt that the Wreck This Journalassignments
were given right at the time that I needed help with essay number two. Being creative and
thinking about how to write descriptively just for the sake of our grade, made me realize that I
was missing the descriptive part in my essay number one. Even though we were asked to be
analytical, it made me think about being evaluative in the process of being more descriptive.
The Professor also influenced me in being more analytical because he was not answering
his questions on the surface level. Because of him answering the classs questions by giving
more than one answer, it made me realize that if anyone and everyone thinks deeper and asks
why to most of what they say, they will find the answers they need and become more
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knowledgeable. It is because all of the answers are in front of them, but they are being too lazy to
figure out what it is they are looking for. They are afraid to think deeper and carve into their own
minds. This gave me the knowledge to think straight-forward, instead of going around to what I
was, literally, trying to say, I wrote more simple and made the point go through to the reader. I
am guessing, that you have to be able to write directly first, and then try to capture the audience
through the writings being indirect, yet analytical to the reader.
I want to make the reader understand what they have read and I want them to read my
work and see that there is many meanings to it, but I wouldnt want them to be confused. I have
tried this from English 114A, and since the first essay, I have always wanted to engulf the reader
into my work and make them think after they have read it. The book, Heart of Darkness, has
inspired me to write this way. Although, I have read many more books that paint a picture in
your head, and make the reader think, in a simple manner to the extent that they get excited about
finding out the meaning and the indirect message, it makes me want to write just like them.
For my essay number one, we were supposed to pick the topic on any of the themes of
the book, The Postmortal, and it was a topic that I wanted to cover most of all, because of how
important my morals are to me. I chose to write about ethics and how it is portrayed throughout
the book and in reality. I should have gone more in depth than I did. I could not figure out how to
write my thesis. It was the most difficult part of my essay. From my tutor, I realized that writing
the content before the thesis would make it much easier for me to figure out my thesis. But,
because of my vagueness taking over me (at the time we did not start the activity with Wreck
This Journal) the thesis was out of my hands. I emailed my Professor many times asking if the
thesis was in context, and yet every time I needed to change it. Even through the changes, I still
did not get it right.
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The essay was partly about how there should not be people going through traumatic
experiences just because of the doctors that are in the process of deciding who should and should
not get the transplant. Talking about ethics is definitely an analytical process, and there were
many places that I may have not been analytical, and it did affect my grade. But, because of the
revision, I came to know that being on the simple side did help a bit.
Although, for my second essay, I was able to put the thesis together with the same advice
the previous tutor gave me. I first had the content written down and then I picked out what the
points were that I talked about. And I was definitely organized in placing the content in its ways
than I was before. This helped me with the thesis a lot, and made me realize that writing in
simple terms makes it easier for the thesis to have just a couple of words that describes the whole
situation without making it unclear to the reader to what I am going to talk about.
My ideas were specifically noted in my second essay compared to my first one. People
are an interesting topic, and it led me to criticize many parts of which I usually did not pay
attention too. I was interested in the place in which here my interest is simply in the variety
of activities of men and women in everyday life which have normative and instrumental (as
opposed to a symbolic or ritual) character (Heap 13). For my essay number two, this is the
quote that describes the analysis of the people around the malls. I was simply, writing what came
to mind, and was not being general about my topic. The issue of the second essay was to talk
about environments, and this was a great topic to just say what there is and not to over think
about the fact that I was being vague, just like in the first essay.
The people who I examined before starting this essay that were by the stands at both of
the malls approached the sellers in very different ways. Looking back on the ways I took notice
of these, makes me analyze more on the aspect that there might have been something that was
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not in my hands, as in was not being controlled by me. Because I was sitting across them, or
maybe the people that I examined were mostly girls or vice versa, there might be a change in
how the environments of the malls that was analyzed. It would be a slight change in viewing the
environment of the mall, but it would not be a dramatic one. This experience has led me to think
more critically on many ends especially when there are analyses that need to be thought of
throughout. I have also thought about the idea of culture that was not specifically mentioned but
was indirectly talked about. For example, when I talk about respect to be respected, culture is
the key component here because of how the consumers were raised. They need to see that there
are many different types of people and how diverse everyone is. And through this, the culture
changes when it sees society, or other cultures change due to the fact that, an obvious example
would be, the United States being a melting pot. Everyone from different cultures has changed
the meaning of what the norm is in modern society. There might be a stability of society, or
what sociologists call social structure (Heap 13) if the cultures are set independent from each
other but could have some small changes from other cultures. Just like sociologists understood
the meaning behind society, I understood the idea of what values mostly consist of, and they are
of culture.
Overall, I have become more of the simple writer. Through the simple writings, I will
raise their expectations by showing them that I can go from simple writings, to analytical and
indirect in a way that it would not make the reader confused. This can happen in one essay too.
Starting off a paragraph in a simple sentence or two and grabbing the readers attention, then
making it analytical so that they can figure it out on their own without being too direct of a
writer, would make the reader and me, feel satisfied.

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Works Cited
Heap, James L. "Reading as Cultural Activities: Enabling and Reflective Texts." JSTOR.
Wiley on Behalf of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University of Toronto,
n.d. Web. 09 May 2014.