Benavides 1

Josue Benavides
Professor Beadle
English 113B
11 May 2016
Reflective Essay
Enrolling into English 113B, I noticed that I have encountered many problems in my
writing. Graduating from a high school where the majority of the teachers were only in it for the
money, and not for preparing the students for college, bothered me a lot because they did not
prepare me for the rigours college writing. Before taking this class, my writing was honestly
horrible. I did not know the simple rules of writing. Thus, throughout English 113B and with the
help of my professor, I feel confident that I have grown as a writer. Writing is one of those things
where you constantly have to practice and practice to get better at it. You dont wake up one day
as a professional writer. It takes time. Looking at Project Space and Project Text, I can argue that
my writing has improved throughout the semester. The areas where I have improved in my
writing are; explaining a quote to my readers, and using rhetoric.
Looking back to Project Text, I noticed that I lacked in my thesis. What I noticed was that
I did not use rhetorician effectively. I did not ask myself; who cares? What about it? How?
When? Where? and Why? That right there affected my overall thesis. Also, my thesis was very
confusing for my readers. I had two ideas on my thesis and did not clarify on which I will argue
about. My tone was also off as well as confusing for the reader to understand because it just
made the whole paper confusing. I will show how my thesis was confusing to my readers. A
falls in love with this girl and is challenged by his self-identity when A is exposed to different
spaces. In the novel, A does not care for ones identity. He does whatever he wants as long as it

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gets him close to the girl and he does that by transitioning to different bodies every day. A is
challenged by his self- identity when he transitions through different spaces by ignoring the
transformation of ones identity to portray his feelings toward Rhiannon (Self-Identity: Ignoring
Ones Identity). In the comment section, my professor wrote What argument are you making?
Are you looking at identity and internal vs. external space? Or at A not respecting other peoples
identities? Now looking at my revised Project Text essay, I clarified my thesis so its more
understandable to my readers. My new and improved thesis is A is therefore challenged by his
self-identity when he inhabits different spaces. the challenge is that when A is exposed to
different spaces, he as to retain his own identity due to the fact that he is in love with Rhiannon.
But when A does not retain his self-identity, he does whatever he wants to the bodies hes
awaken from and tries to do anything he can to get close to Rhiannon. Even if it means abusing
the bodies of others. My new thesis sounds not only better but it is more understandable to my
readers.
Another area where I strongly believe I have improved from was explaining quotes that I
use to back-up my argument, making it stronger. In Project Space, I used a very good quote that
supported my thesis, but I did not fully explain it, thus making my quote very weak. I did not
explain how the quote supported the connection between my own identity and culture. But
looking back to my revised and polished Project Space essay, my explanation improved. In my
revised essay, I stated This quote supports the connection between my identity and culture
because it goes talking about what a culture is. I am part of a fitness culture and a motivational
culture. The quote then goes talking about the patterns of thought and behaviour, including
values, beliefs, rules of conduct, political organization, economic activity. What caught my
attention was the economic activity, money wise. Right now as we speak, I wake up five in the

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morning, go to work and from work, go to school. I work over fifty hours and still make time for
school. That right there just shows how motivated and bad I want it, I want to make something of
myself (Welcome To My Culture). I feel my writing improved there because I did not leave the
quote without explaining it in my revised essay. I have learned that it is crucial to explain a quote
because not explaining a quote will leave the reader questioning and asking him/herself, Whats
this have to do with the argument?. Also leaving a quote unexplained will cause confusion as
well.
One of my strongest points I believe in writing is having enough evidence to back up my
argument. Having enough evidence to back up your argument is crucial because it will make
your argument a hundred times stronger. What also helped a lot to improve my writing was
visiting the LRC. The LRC helped me so much to improve my writing. Also, I want to take my
SI instructor, Allie for taking her time to help me out on my essays. Allie helped me out by
breaking the essay little by little so I wouldnt get stressed out and confused about the whole
prompt. Allie was a big help on my road to improvement on my writing. Other than that, I
believe that my writing has improved. Looking back at both of my essays, I was shocked to see
how many mistakes there was but it also taught me that there is also room for improvement. Like
how Professor Ditch explained last semester Writing is kaizen; which is the continuous
improvement on your work. I am comfortable leaving this class knowing that I have improved
as a writer. I will take on what I have learned and apply it to my future writing courses.