Spice Trade Reflection

Writing Reflection The transition from high school to college can be very intimidating for some. This was the case for me. I feared that my previous teachers may not have prepared me for writing academic papers on the collegiate level. After struggling with the first writing assignment, I had to quickly adapt my writing habits to meet the new expectations. My progression as a writer is best documented by all the intermediary assignments leading up to the final version of Essay 1. Formulating a valid argument about the spice trade – a topic difficult to relate to – was not an easy task for me. I originally struggled coming up with an idea for my thesis despite extensive brainstorming. When writing the thesis, I instinctively reverted back to my old high school habits and wrote it in a five-paragraph structure. Moreover, I failed to include a reason why what I say matters. At this point, I decided it was best to scrap the entire thesis and start fresh before I became too heavily invested in the assignment. Instead of talking about how the spice trade impacted society, I switched my argument to what I thought would be the next important spice. This route was a little more open-ended allowing me to develop the reason why my argument is valid. …show more content…
When writing first couple body paragraphs, I started diverting too far away from the spice trade topic by talking too much about environmental issues. This happened because I failed to find sources that could cohesively link the two ideas together. Moreover, in the last body paragraph I used a quote explaining that natural resources would eventually be used up until nothing remained. Now that I had time to reflect, this seems more appropriate for a philosophical debate rather than an essay about the spice trade. Thus, I scraped this body paragraph before the final