Reflective Essay: My Weaknesses As A Writer

I wrote one “source-based argumentative essay” in high school: my final essay from sophomore English. The guidelines were to write a four to eight page paper on any topic of your choice, but the thesis of the paper had to come across clearly. At the time, my personal goals were to write about something no one else would, as well as get an A in the class. As a future collegiate writer, I feel as though I have the habits and potential strengths to be successful, but my biggest weakness is that I do not know how to write a professional essay and I am a reluctant editor. Habit-wise, I am familiar with the drafting and editing process, nevertheless whenever I write anything, I outline and make a list of key points I would like to address and then make sure I incorporated all of them. Each key point …show more content…
I also use a lot of transitional phrases because I feel they help any writing mesh better. My biggest strength as a writer is that I am very articulate, so I can turn a simple sentence into a very lengthy paragraph, which is necessary to meet word counts. For example, that is how I made my introduction a page and a half. I described the Soviet Union using a list of “iconic” elements, which ended up turning the sentence from a short one to one of over fifty words. These “iconic elements” also ended up being the basis for my entire paper (because they were also my key points). My major weakness is that I am a poor editor. I am very redundant and wordy, which was why I turned a simple introduction into two drawn-out paragraphs. Throughout the entire paper, I act as though the reader has forgotten everything in the last paragraph, so I summarize make sure to define glasnost and perestroika over and over again. When it comes to writing essays, I always end up with writing too much, but saying too little and sometimes not getting the point