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Andy De Luna

Professor Briones

ENGL 1301-123

30 November 2022

Working on the essays, I learned how writing is not as hard as I used to believe it was.

Before taking this class, I considered my writing to be very weak, and I always felt insecure

when writing due to not being an English-native speaker. I took two English classes in my

previous college, and I failed my first-year writing class due to feeling unsure if my writing was

correct and thinking that I would still fail the class. It was hard to think about taking English

again, but I wanted to improve my writing. This class helped me a lot to battle those thoughts

that said I was not good enough with my writing skills and allowed me to open more into

enjoying doing my assignments. Here is my journey though ENGL 1301.

To begin with, whenever I started working on my first essay, it was quite challenging to

find a good amount of information on the subject I chose. I panicked when I realized that looking

for local information in the cities I was referring to was very hard and had to re-think how I was

going to structure my essay. In order to get more information, and to get the attention of the

readers, I looked in different newspapers websites to provide evidence to my arguments, and I

used a tool which allowed me to visit expired websites to get even more information about Eagle

Pass. Using those tools, I was able to find some documents that were lost during the update of

the local library website which helped me to know more about the background of the cities. In

the case of essay 2, I found it easier to find information about the music video I chose as it had

just been released and many people were talking about it. In order to provide evidence on what
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the people were thinking about the video, I supported my essay on YouTube comments I found

in the music video and in videos related to it which modified the parts the authors disliked about

the original one. Also, as a long member of the “League of Legends” community, I was able to

use ethos to support my arguments because of my experience with the game. Lastly, during

Essay 3, using rhetorical devices became easier as it was the point of the essay. I learned about

the rhetorical devices that I was already using but did not know the name of them and used them

in my advantage to persuade my reader into my arguments. It was helpful to use the article as a

guide into what rhetorical devices can do in a more formal document and how to implement

them correctly. On my third essay, I used a lot of ethos and logos, as I provided my arguments

followed by a quote from the article I was analyzing or by an explanation. Doing so helped me to

establish good ground for the reader to know the credibility of my essay.

To continue with, during the creation of my website, I wanted the reader not to feel

overwhelmed with a lot of information. I also wanted my website to have simple tools to make it

compact and easy to follow. I wanted to create credibility by providing my name, my school, and

my major on a little page called “About me,” so people would know that my essays were revised

by my instructor. I also wanted my website to not focus too much on pathos as I think that, for

the themes I touched in my essays, it would be better to keep the website as minimalistic as

possible. My website is easy to navigate and, by having the documents inserted in the website, it

is easier and safer for the reader to check the content on my essays. With all of this in mind, I

believe my public can range from students to adults or even faculty members that would be

interested in learning more about the topics I chose. Some of the things that influenced me with

my rhetorical choices during all my essays was to think about the questions the reader might be

having while reading my document. When elaborating my third essay, there was a part where I
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mentioned how the authors used pathos to appeal with the audience with the use of logos mixed

up; even though the reader could check the article I was referring too and check what I was

referring to, I felt that would make the reader lose interest in my document and start to question

what I was referring to with my argument. To prevent that from happening I used a quote from

the article so that the reader would have a reference to help them understand my point. By

checking what the reader might be thinking, I was able to get a base for them to refer to if they

felt lost at some point in the argument. Overall, the rhetorical devices played a major role in

allowing me to get the reader to finish my essay and to be persuaded by my arguments with

evidence from the texts.

To proceed with, there were a lot of weaknesses I changed over the course of the

semester, and some became strengths thanks to the people that helped me during my writing

process. Some of the weaknesses I had while writing, and I still sometimes, was to begin. It was

the hardest part for me because I was confused on how to order my thoughts properly in the

introduction to have a smooth beginning to my essay. Not only does starting late caused me to

delay my work, but it also made my days more stressful because I was thinking about the

assignment I had to do all day. In order to battle this, I changed my focus whenever I started

writing an essay. I would take read the prompt first and do something else to think about what I

want to write before starting. Then, I would start writing the introduction as I thought about what

my body paragraphs would look like, and that allowed me to get an introduction that reflected

everything I wanted to cover with my document. Then, using the introduction, I would start

writing my body paragraphs and elaborating them. Lastly, I would use the introduction as the

base for my conclusion, as I wanted the reader to understand the basics of the topic, even if they

did not read all the details in the body paragraphs, and how my thesis was relevant to the topic.
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By doing this strategy, I managed to convert one if my biggest weaknesses into my greatest

strength, as I was able to use the introduction to guide myself while creating my essays. Another

one of my weaknesses was that I found it hard to not overuse my words when writing in

Standard Academic English as I was used to do when writing in Spanish. In my writing classes,

in Mexico, I was thought how to write in a way too different manner as people in the United

States do. Usually, in Mexico, we use APA format instead of MLA or Chicago, and going

straight to the point does not seem as appealing as looking for ways to make the writing easier to

digest. I was told from when I came to the U.S. up until now, not so much recently, that my

writing sometimes is too wordy and that I could reduce some sentences to make it simpler. Even

though it is still something that I have to work on, it is hard for me to go straight to the point as I

sometimes feel that it sounds demanding or disrespectful. Another weakness I have is that my

mood tends to fluctuate a lot, and, whenever I am not feeling well, it gets really hard to get my

assignments done or to even think about them. One of the things I have done to overcome this is

attending counseling services here in TAMIU to help me battle myself so that it does not hurt my

academic experience. However, I still considered that I had strengths that I could take advantage

of. One of my major strengths is that I now consider myself to be a good writer, as opposed to

before. Before this class, writing was my worst subject, and I always wanted to get away with

writing assignments due to the stress they caused me. Everything changed with this class, as I

now enjoy doing so and I feel that I can write efficiently. Another strength that I consider I

possess is that I enjoy learning more, and the lectures helped me further develop my writing

skills. Even though it was hard for me to follow the lectures regarding English before, this

semester was different as I enjoyed taking my class and learning more about how to improve my

writing. I believe reading the book before my classes was a very helpful strategy to know the
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topic beforehand and be able to concentrate on asking questions on things that were not clear at a

first glance. Also, another of my strengths was that I always asked for feedback from different

sources, which helped me elevate my essays a lot. I asked some of my friends if they could peer-

review my essay and I also attended the ACE center to get more feedback on things that I could

change from my essays. Additionally, I took their advice but without hurting the essence I

wanted my essay to give to the reader. I believe I was able to develop my own style, and, now, I

can incorporate things into my writing without affecting the flow of the essay. Lastly, something

that I find very useful is that I enjoy to have certain flow of ideas in my essays. I always look for

ways to connect the thoughts into sentences that make sense to the reader without getting lost. It

is hard to connect ideas sometimes, but most of the time, I end up being able to make a

connection so that the reader does not feel lost when reading.

Lastly, the creation of the website presented some challenges that I was not expecting

when I first heard about it from my instructor but ended up being a better experience than what I

thought at first. One of the things that felt challenging for me was to use Weebly as I thought that

it was going to be a lot more difficult than what it ended up being. At first, I thought we would

had to use HTML or CSS to create our website, so I was scared to think about it, but when I

found out how the application we used works, it relieved most of the stress from the assignment.

When creating the website, I consider the hardest part was to understand how to move the

elements inside the page, as it would do things that I did not expect whenever I tried to move

some elements. Even though I struggled a bit to add the elements, once I figured it out, it became

a pretty easy process to follow for the rest of the pages for the essays. One part where I really

struggled was whenever I wanted to add a link to one of my elements at the bottom of the page. I

tried doing it multiple times, but it did not work. I am not sure if it was an error in the page or my
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browser, but I had to restart my browser for it to work properly. For the least challenging part, I

would definitely say that adding the documents was very easy as I only had to upload the files

onto the website.

In conclusion, my journey through ENGL 1301 was a great experience where I learned

more about myself, and I found out who I am as a writer. I consider myself to be a good writer

who likes to provide logical evidence to back up his arguments and that enjoys having a good

flow of ideas in his essays. Without the experiences I learned while working on my 3 essays, I

would not have been able to figure out myself and to develop my writing skills. I enjoyed

learning about my strengths and weaknesses, and I am anxious to continue my writing

experience in a future journey.