English 111 was a great learning experience.

Many of the skills taught will be used again

later in life. I learned about how transitions make papers flow smoother. In-text citations are

necessary to make your paper seem more believable. You shouldn’t be scared by a length

requirement. Taking breaks when writing a paper is a good way to restart your brain for new

ideas and that English is used in every job and every day. I learned so many new things

throughout the year while only writing four papers. Each paper, even though they were all so

different, will help me throughout the rest of my college education.

Paper one, the biggest problem I faced was writing the paper in the style of a memoir.

The easiest papers for me to write are ones with research. I have a hard time writing papers about

personal experiences. I fixed this problem by taking myself out of the paper and writing as it

happened to someone else and I was telling their experiences. The strategy that worked best for

me was to write in segments. When I got stuck writing my paper and couldn’t think of what else

to say, I'd take a step back and do something else. Once I refreshed my brain, I'd come back and

write more. A major content problem I developed was that I didn’t know how often I should talk

about food. Since this was a memoir, it was supposed to be very detail-oriented and I decided to

talk about my surroundings to help build knowledge of my main topic. Writing about this subject

taught me about the lessons I had learned from food. I hadn't thought about food on a level of

learning until I wrote this paper. I want my readers to take from my paper that they should step

out of their comfort zone on occasion. I would describe my voice in this paper as light and

humorous. Since this paper was about me, I decided to write just like how my personality is. My

biggest strength in this paper was the content of the paper. The storyline of the paper flowed

smoothly. My biggest weakness in this paper was not explaining some things fully. In the
revision, I plan to go into more detail in paragraphs where it is needed as well as fix grammatical

errors.

Paper two was the best paper I wrote this semester. The biggest problem I faced was that

I had to change the format of the paper after I realized during peer review that I was wrong.

Luckily, it was an easy fix. I relied on past writing strategies when writing this paper. During

high school, my English class focused on rhetoric and so I learned about audience, ethos, logos,

and pathos. Each paragraph showed my independent thinking since we were supposed to dissect

the research to discover why each was written and who it was written for. Writing about this

subject taught me that even if you get sick of writing about your topic, you must power through.

My awareness of the genre influenced me to write this paper in a more academic tone. The

sources that were included in the paper were different styles but when writing about them, they

had to have the same tone. I took risks when writing this paper. I decided to write about Cracker

Jack, even though I knew going into it that there wasn’t going to be many academic sources

about it. The biggest strength of this paper is my explanations of the sources. My biggest

weakness was finding the sources to write about. In my revision, I plan to fix grammatical errors.

However, I will not change much.

What I learned about myself when writing paper three is that I love arguing. To me, this

was the easiest paper to write. My strategy for this paper was that once I found a source, I would

use the information I learned from it and type as much as I could. If a type a sentence that didn’t

fit, I'd put it in a new paragraph and move on. What I'd do next is find a source that would talk

about that one sentence I made so it fit into my paper. Writing about this subject taught me that

obesity is a gigantic issue and I want to eat healthier, so I never have to encounter it. I learned a

lot about my subject while researching it. A major content problem I had was getting the
paragraphs to flow together. I have a hard time putting transitions into my papers, and I had to

use a lot of them in this one. What I want readers to take away from my work is that I compelled

them to believe my argument. Since this was an argument, I don’t want them to think that this

paper was informal and not a big deal. The rhetoric strategy that I used the most was my use of

statistics. Using logos was very important in this paper to inform the audience that I was being

serious. My biggest strength in this paper was how I used research and then explained it in my

own words so that the audience could understand it better. My biggest weakness was citing my

sources in my paper. For my revision, I plan to focus on placing in-text citations. I only put a few

in my paper and I should've put a lot more into it.

Paper four required new strategies for me. I had never written a proposal before and so I

was in the dark about how to write this. I wrote the paper backward to think more about the

topic, beginning with the cost-benefit analysis and ending with the main analysis. What I learned

about myself through this paper is that I had developed many skills throughout the semester. I

was proud of this paper and I don’t think I would've been at the beginning of the year. A major

content problem I had during this paper was making it long enough. I was stuck to the point in

which I had no place to add anything. I ended up making a few sentences in every paragraph and

worked on my transitions. The detailed plan section of this paper showed my independent

thinking. During this, I had to think of every step that it would take for my proposal to work and

there was no research involved. The tone of my voice in this was formal and informational. Since

this was a proposal, I wanted to sound intelligent and I wanted to be respected. I took a risk in

this paper. I wasn’t very passionate about my topic and that made me hesitant to write such a

long paper about it. My biggest strength in this paper was thinking through everything that I

wrote and questioning it. This allowed me to see if I was making sense of my writing. It was
almost like a peer review of myself. My biggest weakness was not using in-text citations. For my

revision, I plan to focus on my in-text citations, grammatical errors and making sure everything

makes sense.

This class will help me greatly in later classes. Next semester I will be taking English 212

and I will apply what I was taught in this class to the next. My future career as a Medical

Laboratory Scientist will not require writing assignments often. I will mostly deal with lab

reports, which I can use some of the skills that I have learned. However, I will benefit from the

lessons I have learned in this class for my cover letters and resumes when trying to get jobs. I am

thankful for everything that I have acquired in English 111 and I look forward to the future.