Reflect on the paper you just wrote. What was easy? What was difficult? What will you do differently for future papers? You can write about any point in the process, from the directions (what you might need from me), to struggles (what you might be able to get help from your peers), to just simple tasks like using the writing center or building an annotated bibliography.
200 words.
Due Monday Feb. 3 (I changed the date, because I forgot to post the blog. Apologies).
Writing the first paper was a good learning experience for me. I’ve never written a paper in MLA format, so it was a great introduction to MLA. What I didn’t enjoy doing was going to the writing center for the second time. The first time I went was alright. The tutor was informative, and gave me the feedback I needed to tweak the paper so it didn’t look like a second grader wrote it. The second tutor just about made me write the paper all over again. It was quite discouraging. Seeing as I will have more time to write the upcoming papers, I will take more time between proofreads and visit the writing center just once. Perhaps having one of my peers read it would be more beneficial that having someone who doesn’t know the assignment read it.
ReplyDeleteP.Breckenridge
I’ll be honest when I say I did not give this first paper my all. I suppose it discouraged me a little bit because I was not interested at all in what I was reading. However, claiming disinterest should not be an excuse for my lack of top notch writing. I really wish I was able to make it to the writing center, but do to my trip to the hospital, that did not happen. I will definitely utilize the writing center more in the future, though, because the short time I spent in there making my appointment last week was not a bad experience. They truly seem willing to help. As far as the MLA formatting goes, I was pretty confident in the way that I set it up because I spent a great deal of time with it in ENG 121. What I need to work on is using more in text citations and exploiting the information the two articles were giving me from the start. All in all, I am okay with how my first paper went, but there is always room for improvement, and I do need to put much more effort into my writing skills.
ReplyDeleteI have to admit I was a little intimidated when my class was told our first assignment was a synthesis. I didn’t do very good last semester on my synthesis assignment, I think my paper was written well but since I didn’t follow the directions, my grade on that paper was less than desirable. This paper proved to be somewhat challenging for me, I started by writing the introduction and found that writers block was an issue. I will definitely start my next paper by writing the body first, maybe it will help me avoid writers block with future papers. I found the writing center to be useful, I visited the center twice for this assignment, and the tutors were very helpful. In short I enjoyed the challenge. I feel like I have gained a lot of useful tools and relearned some of the fundamentals that had started fading away since my English 121 class.
ReplyDeleteWhen we were first assigned the Synthesis assignment I was worried that I was a little rusty and would have a hard time putting everything together. I wasn’t sure how I would go about organizing my argument because I haven’t written and English paper in 2 years. I think that by reviewing the MLA formatting and by looking over my past worked It gave me a little bit more confidence in starting the paper. It was difficult for me to get out of my funk and get down to my good writing. The assignment in itself was not difficult, but wasn’t as enjoyable to write, as I am familiar that not everything I will write will be for my own pleasure. For my future papers, I want to go plan everything sooner and just right my thoughts about the subject first, as Miranda had suggested. I think that the writing center is a good tool used to help me organize and edit my papers, so I will definitely continue to use that resources. I think by reviewing formatting and the fundamentals will help me to get back into the groove of writing research English papers. Other than that this assignment was a breeze.
ReplyDeleteLook at my first paper I can definitely see some room for improvement, but overall I was satisfied with the paper as a whole. I was able to see some of the practices that I learned at the end of English 122 come into play. Most were successful, getting an early start and pacing myself with time to unwind was a great befit. While I gave myself plenty of time to write the paper itself, it would have been better if I had given more time to researching the two articles. Had I taken the time to replace one of the articles I might have been able to push a stronger thesis then what I presented.
ReplyDeleteGoing down to the Writing Center was a great experience. I was able to work with someone I had worked with before. She was able to provide some excellent tips to help me improve my grammar, a place my papers still suffer on. As well as new tricks for making me proof-read more slowly and carefully. One thing that I plan to try is changing the font of my paper to during proof-reading to trick my brain into going slower. Looking forward I might try going to the writing center more often or at least early on to see if they can help with the brainstorming side of things.