Alexandra Rodriguez

English 1301

Dr. Loren Higbee

September 20, 2021

Reflective Essay 1

There have been many new things I learned over the process of writing this essay.

Numerous of these techniques could be used in our everyday lives and class courses. There are

always new achievements to learn to improve yourself in your everyday life.

One of the many things I learned in this essay were fragments, comma splices, and

essential and nonessential information. These are very important to know because whether you

realize it or not, you use writing every single day. It could be when you are doing an essay for a

class, writing a letter to a friend, or simply texting/sending emails. This could be useful because

other class courses require writing assignments from the students every year. It is something you

could get an easy grade in if you know how to write proper essays. For example, I am required to

write a short essay for my Univ 1201 and Math 1314 class. Because of this essay, I feel as

though it made it easier to write papers for my other college classes. I struggle a lot less and feel

more well prepared.

Continuing, things I feel as though will not be applicable to other courses compared to

this course is the word count. Other classes do not require as high of a word count as an English

class would because they are not grading the way you write the essay, but more of an

understanding of the assignment. A percentage of the grade will be on how you write the paper,

so you still have to know how to properly construct an essay and add acceptable details.
 The analysis of a community helped improve my general writing because I am now able

to correctly write a paper talking about a specific community without making it sound like a

research paper. I can easily speak about how the community works and what genre helps define

them. A way it could help me approach writing tasks in the future is by not being so afraid if it is

correct or not, because now I know what to look for and how to properly write about it.

Speaking of general writing, few of my writing strengths would be my attention to detail.

I could easily spot a grammatical error or if a sentence does not sound academically correct, I am

quick to change that and make it sound appropriate. Comparingly, a few of my weaknesses is

constantly changing my essay and revising to make it better. I consider this a weakness because I

want my essays to be perfect, so it takes me a lot more time to get everything how I like and how

I deem it would be correct.

Based on the comments I received from my peers, from my writing I learned that I need

to add more detail when it comes to my conclusion. Not necessarily “filler”, but more

information about the topic I am writing about. I tend to go a bit shorter when writing down my

conclusions because I feel as though I already stated everything I needed to say throughout the

process of my essay. I also learned that the topic I chose was something they liked because of

how interesting it was. This could be helpful for when I am writing a paper that has to intrigue

the reader because I can make something that will catch their attention.

Similarly, something I learned about myself in this essay is how fast I am able to come up

with something and write about it. For example, I only had two days to totally change my essay;

I was able to complete it, despite the fact of having multiple other homework assignments due

that day. Not only was I able to get it done, I was able to do it correctly and make it interesting,

in my opinion.
 My understanding of genre, community, and participants would be my essay for example.

I wrote about Jehovah's Witnesses, which is a community. They use their Bible to guide them in

their everyday life so they will not sin and lose their eternal salvation. The genre would be their

bible, to guide them and speak about their community, and the participants would be each

individual Jehovah Witness who actively participates in the church.

I believe the most challenging part of this essay was the word count. I can make an essay

sound good, however it would be a lot harder if there was a specific word count. This could

easily result in filler information, which would lead to deducted points. On the contrary, the least

challenging part of the essay was having enough time to create and submit my essay. It could be

difficult to write an essay in a short period of time because of the immense pressure you are

under. However, having a week to submit your paper is more than enough time to complete it

and make it sound good and well put together, in my opinion.

Lastly, the way my identity as a writer changed with this essay is that I am more familiar

with better academic words and am able to properly form an essay without the fear of it being

incorrect or not well written.

To sum up, there could be many different things to learn when writing an essay whether

you realize it or not. It could be as small as learning how to properly spell different words to

learning new harder academic words that could be input into your essay to make it sound a lot

more organized. Point is, you could always learn something new when writing an essay.