Reflective Essay: What I Learned To Write Better

I chose the following five assignments because I thought they showed my growth the best. At the beginning of the course, writing quickwrites in less than five minutes was a bit challenging. As time went by, I was able to write a seven sentence paragraph with supporting examples, within those five minutes. Annotating a text was always something I enjoyed doing because I love to read. I did, of course, improve my annotating by writing down more of my thoughts and by analyzing the writer’s use of rhetorical devices and strategies. Annotating allowed me to write better summaries because I understood the importance of the text better. All three of these skills together have helped me develop better essays. Without the ability to write quickly, understand the text, and summarize what I analyzed, my writing would be below average. …show more content…
Taking ERWC has helped me improve in those areas. The controversial essay was the first essay we wrote and the only thing wrong with it was my punctuation because I was missing a lot of commas in my writing. For example, in my second paragraph I wrote “In 2014 a group named the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) formed”, and I need a comma after the year 2014. In a later essay, my proposal, I only forgot one comma, but a new problem arose. I received a fifty percent because according to the rubric, I did not attempt to follow MLA format when I did not include in-text citations. Because the proposal was more opinion based, I had trouble using sources to support my argument. For instance, I wrote “In the article…Kate Murphy explains…many schools are losing a lot of money”, and forgot to include where in the article I found what I summarized. In my most recent essay for the book Into the Wild, I made sure my MLA was adequate. When I cited quotes form the book I included the page numbers where they could be