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Jocelyne Baires

Professor Ditch

English 115

9 December 2019

Techniques Create Rhetoric

As I was writing my first essay in English 115, I noticed that I was having difficulties

transitioning the skills that I gained from high school. Writing in college is very different from

writing in high school. The prompts that are given in college has more detail, are specific, and

many words are difficult to understand. I have been told that writing is a repetitive process by

many professors and teachers from high school. As I continued to write I noticed that I usually

answer the easier part prompts and forget the whole purpose of the prompt. Also I noticed that I

have trouble writing my sentences in present tense and mainly have difficulties writing strong

arguments. My writing skills have improved from the beginning of the semester to now because

of all the LRC appointments, feedback from students and professors, and reviewing essays from

WAVES which is “A Collection of Student Essays.”

As I first reviewed my essay prompt for “Project Space” it was difficult for me to

understand what the prompt was asking me because of all the authors that I needed to incorporate

tricked me into overthinking the prompt. In my first essay “Relationships and Experiences are

Significant” the score that I received was a 77% and it was devastating to see the score because I

was having difficulty understanding the prompt because I am familiar with my writing skills

from high school but, I noticed that I was only answering one question from the prompt “What

kind of space (internal and/or external) is each author focusing on?,” writing in past tense, and

only summarizing what the authors had been doing in each article. Also I had looked over all the
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feedback that I have gotten from Professor Ditch and she mainly emphasized the fact that I

needed to write in present tense and answer all questions from the prompt. Also I went to the

LRC my tutor vocalized that my thesis was weak and needs improvement. As I was creating my

thesis he also states, “always write in present tense and for each paragraph answer who, what

does the evidence mean, and why does the evidence matters.” In order for my essay to be clear I

needed to have a strong thesis but, once I had created it I noticed how clear my paragraphs were

tying together. I analyzed every paragraph and incorporated all the answers that I needed in order

to support my thesis. I started to change my past tense into present tense and restructure my

sentences that were unclear. Overall, I had learned many writing techniques from Project Space.

The prompt for Project Text is more specific than the Project Space prompt. As I got my

score from my essay, “Previous Experiences Creates Success” I was relieved because I worked

hard and incorporated all the stuff that I learned from the previous essay and got an 84%. In this

essay I still had some flaws with past tense and some flaws of reminding the reader what my

thesis was in each of my paragraphs. I mainly looked at many essays from WAVES and try to

mimic their essay structure in order for my essay to make sense. To make this essay more

credible I went to the LRC and my tutor asked me to go over every paragraph and state what the

function of each parish in order to answer why it matters for every evidence. As I was doing that

I realized that some of my paragraphs were repetitive and not answering the prompt. To fix all of

those errors I reworded some sentences and also reminded the reader my thesis in every

paragraph. I also went to the grammar lab and my tutor helped me understand that many of the

words I was incorporating into my essay are unnecessary. Overall I had learned greater writing

techniques in this essay.

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My writing skills have gotten better due to the amount of effort that I put into both of

these essays and also taking as much feedback I can get from my essays and creating a more

professional essay. Also my writing has improved by the amount of books that I have read this

semester. There are many resources that I have used to become a better writer. Writing is a basic

skill that everyone should perfect because it helps many people get jobs and higher degrees.
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Work Cited

Baires, Jocelyne. Previous Experiences Creates Success. 9 Dec. 2019 California State University

of Northridge, Northridge

Baires, Jocelyne. Relationships and Experiences is Significant. 9 Dec. 2019 California State

University of Northridge, Northridge

Norwood, Amber, Reynolds. Amy Waves: A collection of Student Essays. Second Edition. 2019.

Eds. Reynolds & Norwood, Hackett & Wolf