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Dustin Page

Professor Moore

ENGL 1302

7 May 2017

Reflections of an English Student

At the beginning of the semester, I was concerned about taking an honors English course

due to the increased word count for each essay and having to give an honors presentation at the

end of the semester. Although I was a little apprehensive about taking this course, I was

comforted knowing that Professor Moore would be teaching the class. While I had an excellent

foundation from my previous English course, this class challenged me to go above and beyond

my comfort zone in a multitude of ways. Due to this challenging course, I believe that I learned

valuable information that helped me significantly improve my writing skills in the areas of using

proper punctuation, providing more information to expand on my ideas to better argue my

position, and hitting a higher word count.

While punctuation is not a major issue I struggle with when writing my essays, in an

early rough draft of my rhetorical analysis essay about President Reagans Challenger Tragedy

Address, I managed to leave out a few commas in certain areas of the paper. For example, in the

opening sentence of the essay On January 28, 1986 President Ronald Reagan was preparing to

give his state of the Union address when an American tragedy took place causing him to change

his plans I failed to place a comma after 1986. This error is present again in the following

sentence where I forgot to place a comma between the words takeoff and killing. Because of

these mistakes and other errors I have made in the past, I have decided that when in doubt place a

comma and if you think you have enough commas the answer is almost always no. However, I
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can proudly say that following my rhetorical analysis essay commas and punctuation were not a

serious issue for me throughout the remainder of the semester.

Because football is one of my favorite sports, having the ability to discuss the serious

issue of concussions in my causal argument essay was a major highlight of mine this semester.

During the process of writing this essay, some of the most valuable feedback I received regarding

my paper was to include examples of how the equipment in the NFL has changed and some of

the new rules implemented by the NFL. This is evident in my essay in the sentence The sport

has evolved over the years making significant improvements to the equipment, implementing

new rules. Thanks to this insightful feedback from one of my classmates, I was able to add

important information regarding new helmets that have been designed to protect against

concussions and added that the NFL implemented a new ejection rule to reduce concussions.

This class taught me that it is important to include as much information as possible in order to

properly argue a position on a serious issue.

When it was finally time to begin writing my proposal essay, the significantly higher

word count of over 2000 words was daunting and overwhelming to say the least. Throughout the

process of writing this essay, I had a difficult time finding enough information to include in my

paper that was relevant to my topic while also trying to reach the higher word count. It was

especially challenging due to the fact that the issue of concussions is a difficult problem to solve.

According to a peer review of one of my final rough drafts, my classmate said that a major

problem I had was repeating information throughout my paper. For example, I refer to football

as a full contact sport twice within the essay. I also say the phrases ensure player safety,

ensure a safer game, and safe for the athletes which sound similar in many ways. This is a

major challenge I face when trying to meet an increased word count while not repeating the same
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words or phrases. Because of this feedback, I was able to recognize my own repetitiveness and

hopefully learn to be more versatile with my word choice in the future.

Overall, I believe I learned many valuable skills from my professor and my peers during

this semester that I will take with me as I further my education. This class has helped me to

reach higher word counts which was a skill that I did not have before taking this course. I have

also begun to take a closer look at my papers to ensure that grammar and punctuation are no

longer a concern. Finally, I learned that it is important to fully elaborate on my arguments and

the more sources included in the essay the better it will be. Although I am relieved this is my

final English essay, I am glad I decided to take this course and push my writing ability to a

higher level.