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Lorenzo Luna

English 1301-115

Dr. Sharity Nelson

3 December 2023

My Final Reflection Essay

My first semester enrolled at a university has a whole lot of ups and a lot of downs. I was

not sure what to expect as I was never much of an academic weapon in high school. I knew

however, that I have always been a strong writer and English was my strong suit compared to a

subject like math. This course seemed like it was only going to help me become a better writer

and the truth of the matter is it did. There was a lot of analysis done in the course that I had never

done before. Breaking down every bit of content bit by bit and organizing my thoughts and ideas

was the highlight of the course. While at times I could be looking at a poster I would just kind of

blow it off thinking some stylistic choices meant nothing while in fact it did serve a purpose. I

was able to appreciate ideas and themes for what they were and that is not something I could

have said prior to taking this course.

Throughout the writing process this semester I learned that receiving feedback from your

peers and professors is critical to ensuring your paper can hit its true potential. Your peers are in

the same boat as you and oftentimes their brains function the same way. Thought processes

between both parties are often very similar so there is a common middle ground when it comes

to revising a paper. They pick up on things you would have never thought of and in return you

can do the same. Whether or not you take the feedback is up to you. Your professor is obviously

the most qualified for giving feedback back to the student as they have been doing this for years.

I found myself always taking down notes to help improve my paper and always revising my
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paper based on her comments. Not to invalidate my peers, but at the end of the day she knows

how papers are supposed to flow. In general all the activities and homework related to peer

review were most helpful including the revision websites uploaded on the stream to explain the

step by step process. Of all courses I could have applied my newly acquired skills to my music

courses. When I had to partake in concert reports I always ensured I was following the correct

writing process steps to help ensure I received the best possible grade. Never in a million years

would I think I would have been writing in MLA format over a concert.

As previously mentioned earlier, I really enjoyed the analysis process that took place in

this course. Prior to this I wouldn't really just sit and appreciate a piece of work and never tried

to draw conclusions from it. I am now able to draw connections between even minute details to

the overlying message whereas before I found no importance in doing so. The class activities that

had us partaking in observing an image and giving feedback to the instructor about what our

thoughts were was extremely engaging. While sometimes I may have a completely wrong

analysis on an image, that in reality is the beauty of it. At the end of the day it is your

interpretation and nobody can ever really tell you that you are wrong because who is to say that

they are right?

The revision process is always something I have flourished in I’d say. When I just have

time to step away and come back to my work I feel like a completely different writer. I can

pinpoint where my writings have gone wrong and I can easily fix what needs to be fixed. I do

need guidance however, which is where the peer and instructor review from before comes in. I

can’t reiterate enough that the more people that leave me comments the better the paper turns out

I feel. I feel above that just ensuring you are rested, so when you re-read your paper is most

critical. Just psychologically I feel that your brain just has time to reflect and it makes you a
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better writer in the process without you knowing. The elements that change in my writing are

without a doubt transitions as I was always corrected on that. Ensuring each paragraph flowed

seamlessly with each other like a story was the part I had to nail. At times, I felt like my

transitions were a bit awkward or middle school like. I reworked this by digging into my bag of

transitional phrases to fix these mistakes. Another recurring problem was my tendency to bloat

paper. I tend to write down a lot of ideas and sometimes not all make sense or don’t go

anywhere. Their phrase “less means more” truly does make sense as a reader can take away

fewer more impactful ideas compared to a lot of miniscule unimportant ones. To fix this I just

really took the time to tackle an idea at a time and was not afraid to outride delete an idea if I felt

it wasn’t relevant to the topic at hand.

Every essay came with difficulties, but a recurring writing element that always threw me

off was the use of citations. Having to remember what to cite and how to do so always threw me

off. The earlier essays were not so difficult, but the third essay had me struggling the most as

there were so many fallacies and I could go wrong in so many ways and potentially plagiarize.

This part had me stressing the most and it oftentimes tired my brain out over writing the actual

paper in the first place. The least difficult parts of my essays just came to writing a whole lot. I

can write down a lot rather quickly. It really showed as I sometimes exceeded the word count. At

least it was just the drafts and I could revise and edit what I needed to avoid a harmful grade at

the end.

Knowing who your audience is in your writings is of utmost importance as you must not

alienate a certain portion of your audience. As far as my essays went I would try my hardest to

not address myself in the first person to avoid any confusion. In my e-portfolio however, I have

free reign to communicate my writings to the audience freely as it is my own website. Every
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genre of essay we wrote about this semester was similar, but not similar. The first essay dealt

with genre analysis. The second essay was a visual analysis. The third essay was a journal

reviewed article. The first two can be seen as kind of similar, but ultimately they are not.

Someone who is not enrolled in the course can get confused about this and request further

elaboration upon it. In this case on my website I tried my absolute hardest to explain what

elements were really showcased in each essay. Let’s say one essay is more to be viewed and you

build your own assumptions, whereas another is to be taken quite literally. Trying to find the fine

line between every genre needs to be evident and that’s what my ultimate goal was. Separating

every genre in the website was also important not only for aesthetic purposes, but for the sake of

the audience as well. A different page for each type of essay goes along way as it

psychologically puts up an invisible barrier between every genre. From there the audience can

hone in on what genre is which and can then spend more time on the genre that might be giving

you more trouble.

Every course has its own set of difficulties, but for this one in particular I felt I just

struggled with not procrastinating or getting in my own way. There were times where I would

just put things off despite me knowing better. I still tried to ensure I turned everything in, but

towards the end I had a lot of conflicts in my life which made my habits more difficult to recover

from which let me slip a little bit. It’s not that I didn’t want to get some of the work done or meet

up with the professor for my review time, I legitimately just couldn’t make it and I felt the urge

to solve my personal conflicts as they were distracting me on a daily basis. Alas, I got things

situated and while my procrastination habits are slowly going away they are not fully gone. I still

do believe the course is set up with great deadlines and it’s organized really well as you can kind

of build up a routine within the course. Assignments that are due are always due around the same
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time an essay comes around and they will always correlate with that. It slightly differentiated

every time, but it was never a curveball out of left field and I can really appreciate that. If there

were more curveballs I do not know how I would have made it through the way I did, especially

practicing not so great habits and having conflicts out of my control affecting me. Sticking to a

common routine was hard for me and my partner at times as we were sometimes a bit late to

review each other's work and that would shift the whole work over a bit, but we managed. When

writing I felt that my analysis on parts of the second essay seemed nonsensical. I would catch

myself thinking that why does it matter that a certain illustration is this color and not that color.

At the time being I felt like that didn’t matter whatsoever and I was wasting my time, but I soon

realized the importance and erased that mindset all together.

With the challenges also came points in where I felt I was not struggling as a writer. I felt

the parts I didn’t struggle with was to actually just create content and reach out if I did need help.

When I asked questions I made sure to absorb the information like a sponge and really reiterate

what was being told to me and write it down on the paper in front of me. To put it bluntly, I was

good at smoothing out the edges and doing the best I could with my papers. I felt my drafts and

finals essay really differentiated in quality which just shows it’s a night and day difference when

I have time to just recollect my thoughts and tackle the problem at hand. It never really bothered

me and I actually found the process enjoyable and it just makes the end product just that more

satisfying.

This course I believe has prepared me for the future as I feel like an entirely different

writer now than I was at the beginning of the semester. Being able to apply my newfound skills

to other courses as well as my future English class is going to benefit me in the long run as I can

keep using the tools I have acquired to keep on mastering my craft. I do feel like my writing is at
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a much higher level now than before as I have proper guidance at this university and that is

something I felt I did not have when I was in high school. While the road eventually got bumpy,

I can be thankful for that because I felt growth not only in my writing, but as a person as well.

When you are uncomfortable that is when you grow the most and I am glad to have gone through

the whole process and reached the finish line. Not only did this course help make my first

semester as a college freshman more enjoyable, but it gave me challenges and taught me some

lessons I can carry over to my future studies. I can drop my bad habits and fix them to just keep

on growing to try and become the best version of myself. At the end of the day I’d rather

continue growing little by little than to show no growth at all.