Self Reflection: My Improvement In My Writing

Over the last four essays, my ability to write has improved exponentially from the beginning of the year. Through the four essays I have learned valuable skills that will be the support for future essays. On the two beginning essays my ability to use vocabulary and other valuable skills was improving. By being supplied by information from the instructor, and fellow classmates I was able to spot my weaknesses in my writing and improve where improvement was needed. As the semester progress each essay improved upon the last as self reflection and reflection from others was used wisely. Throughout this semester, I have strived to improve on transitions from paragraph to paragraph while using connective tissue to connect each paragraph in my writing, …show more content…
The first and second writing projects were stocked with comments on concepts that needed improvement, while the third and possibly fourth essay were limited in comments and had already met the given criteria.
On the basis of transitions and the use of connective tissue, my writing has improved over the last four projects. Instructor Ogrodowski stated “Goals as you progress--working on transitioning and connecting body paragraphs” and this is “a tool to build ethos.” This was located on the second writing project final, and was one of two issues that were present throughout the essay. Looking back on the essay, the inability to effectively transition, and effectively connect my body paragraphs was prevalent as the paragraphs had little to no relation. A classmate within my peer review stated on writing project two that “It is hard to follow what you are writing.” I agree that in my earlier pieces, due to the distinct lack of transitioning, following the essay was a struggle. Due to no connective tissue being present, the ability to …show more content…
I first learned about this flaw in my writing when Instructor Ogrodowski stated on the writing project one rough draft “Watch paragraph length...although solid detail, be sure to direct your audience by knowing when to give breaks.” This is in reference to my final paragraph being nearly an entire page long, which is far too long for a single paragraph when the rest of the essay is only three to four pages long. Improvement in this problem can be seen in writing project three as no paragraph exceeds the length by far more than it should of other paragraphs. In any of the writing projects where certain paragraphs heavily exceeded the length of the others, I felt the need to do so to initially meet the word count. While I was not fabricating information to create length, I was carrying on certain topics longer than were needed to prove a specific point. To prevent this, I took my time and thought of more topics to write about in writing project three and four, effectively preventing a paragraph or sentence being far too long. Therefore, because of comments from the instructor and taking time to effectively write an essay while focusing on length, the length of paragraphs has become more appropriate in the final two