Course Reflection

Good writing takes hard work. The mental act of organizing ideas in a coherent fashion while consciously monitoring sentence structure and audience appropriateness can be exhausting. Learning to become a better writer does not make the work easier; moreover, it requires more effort. Through this course, my writing has improved tremendously. Writing is structurally better, introductions work to grab the readers’ interest, and the ideas are more logically sequenced and organized. I have learned numerous strategies that I have used effectively to help me get started writing, continue when stuck, and revise more objectively.
This introduction paragraph my not excite you uncontrollably, but I bet you have a clear sense of where I am going and what this paper holds in store. One of the most helpful tips from our readings is keeping the audience in mind at all times. The writer should constantly ask, “Is this interesting and to the point?” and “Will the reader understand what I am saying?”. By eliminating words and phrases I previously overused, clarity and readability improves. Tighter writing is more powerful writing. In this sense, my writing has improved by leaps and bounds.
I invite anyone to look at the first drafts of writings completed early this semester and compare to drafts later in the semester. You will find that the writing is much clearer and ideas flow more logically. Sentence structures are improved and many unnecessary prepositional phrases and words are eliminated. This is, in part, due to changes in my thought processes I as approach a writing project and during the actual writing. I have learned tools for organizing ideas like flow charts that allow me to see all of my brainstorming ideas and the relationship between ideas. I now take out some scratch paper when I get stuck and write some paragraphs or ideas that I have about other areas of the paper. I find that I am no longer stuck when I get back to the original.
Peer-editing practice has improved my ability to edit other’s writing and my own. I now read my own writing in the voice of others, and it helps to be objective about the writing. I hear what is actually written instead of what I meant to write. I anticipate errors I know I have a tendency to write. This process makes writing slower than before but worth the wait.