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Patricia Cruz

Professor Ditch

English 115

9 May 2018

A Student's Progression in Writing, a Building Block to a More Eloquent World

Writing is like learning to ride a bicycle. You're intimidated at first. You stumble and you

fall, but only by practicing you are able to see what techniques worked that allowed you to stay

balanced in order to stay upright and peddle your way to victory. Similarly, I experienced this

throughout my English 115 course, and like learning to ride a bike, I was able to improve on my

writing through plenty of practice in order to be able to efficiently write a well-written essay that

not only captures the attention of my audience but gets the point across. Throughout the course

of this semester, I have learned many rules and techniques that have allowed me to improve on

my writing that is evident through my Project Space and Project Text essays. Not only did I

improve from my Project Space to my Project Text essay, but I was also able to improve my

writing through the final revisions I made in the Portfolio. Through this progression, I have

learned how to adjust a broad thesis into a strong and detailed one and how to properly use and

analyze sources in my writing in order to address a lack of textual support.

In both, my Project Space and Project Text, essays I struggled with having a thesis that

was too broad, but I was able to address and improve this issue. To demonstrate, the thesis that I

had first written in my Project Space essay simply reiterated the prompt for the essay but did not

specifically address the argument that I was making about how my happiness changed through

space. My thesis was as follows: "When analyzing my life through the philosophical lens of the
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Dalai Lama, Epictetus, and Laozi, my own experience of happiness changes not only through the

spaces I travel, such as home and school, but on my mindset, as well, thus affecting my

performance in these different spaces." As you can see, my thesis lacked a clear path that would

allow readers to know what I will be explicitly addressing in my essay. I repeatedly encountered

this issue throughout the semester because I had the misconception that my thesis was to be

constrained to only one sentence, so I avoided adding detail into it because I was concerned

about the length. However, I learned that the purpose of the thesis was to iterate the argument

that I was making in my essay and I am able to break it up into multiple sentences. I was able to

improve my thesis by adding another sentence that addressed specifically how my performance

is affected by space and how this demonstrates my happiness. I adjusted it by adding, "I am able

to positively influence my experience of happiness through my psychological space in order to

be able to act freely and be appreciative of my life rather than being concerned with the ideas of

others or the materialistic world." As I discussed, I was able to adjust my thesis so it could be

more detailed, in terms of how my performance changes through space. Like for Project Space, I

was also able to adjust my Project Text thesis, in order to ensure that I was addressing the

prompt in detail and that I was making a clear argument. With the help of the skills I learned

through the semester, I was able to improve my theses, along with other issues I encountered.

Another issue that I was able to improve through my essays was learning how to properly

analyze and add sources into my writing. Textual evidence is indispensable in analytical and

argumentative writing; thus, a lack or misuse of textual evidence demonstrates a lack of

credibility and will cause a lack of interest in readers. For this reason, it was essential to address

this issue, which I was able to do through the development of both of my essays. For instance, in

my Project Space essay I lacked textual evidence that would serve to support how space affects
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my performance and how this exhibits my happiness. In order to do this, I used evidence from an

excerpt, "From the Tao Te Ching" by Laozi, included in the book, Pursuing Happiness, that is

required to use as support in my essays. I used a quote from this source in order to demonstrate

how my performance in certain spaces reflects my happiness. By doing so, I was able to make

the following analysis based on the quote I used: "Laozi explains that if I care for the opinion of

others and only act according to their approval, then I will be live in discontentment and I will

not be able to act as myself and do the things I enjoy." As one can see, by using textual support, I

was able to make this analysis that served as an aid for creating a stronger point than what I

previously had alone and would make a more profound analysis of my own life. This was also an

issue that I was able to improve within my Project Text essay by ensuring that I added evidence

in each of my body paragraphs and analyzed them correctly. With this said, I was able to

improve my writing with the purpose of adding credibility and support, which are essential

elements that a good writer must include.

As I have discussed throughout this essay, my writing has evidently improved from my

Project Space and Project Text essays and the revisions I made on the Portfolio that addressed

issues that I previously had and didn't know how to address. The most prominent problems that I

fixed among these essays included having a broad thesis and a lack of textual support. Through

the mistakes I made I was able to gain knowledge on how to create a specific and strong thesis

statement and properly add and analyze textual support. These are all issues that are critical in

differentiating a good writer from a bad one, which is why it is important to be able to recognize

and address them. Overall, I believe that I was able to improve significantly in my writing, but

despite my evident improvements in writing I will continue to strive for improvement as an

improving writer is a building block to a world that is able to communicate eloquently.