Agliam 1

Robert Agliam
English 111
Reflective Essay
January 22,2015
Growth And Improvements As A Writer
Beginning my senior year of high school in college english I did not have any idea what
to expect. At the start it was a bit difficult to adjust to the workload that was assigned in only a
short period of time, like the small six minutes of a wrestling match. Though I could not
complain, after all I signed up for it knowing the risks. I quickly needed to do away with my bad
habits as a writer and learn the new styles and guidelines to college level writing. In my preassessment essay I had a horrible style of writing that could not keep an audience, along with no
title to go with my essay. Throughout the first semester of English 111 I made the majority of my
improvements in my own writing style, the mechanical conventions of an essay, and the use of
outside sources.
Each wrestler has their own style of wrestling, just as each writer has their own style as
well. The style of writing of every writer can affect an essay in good ways and bad ones.
Switching styles of writing during an essay can be very distracting to the audience or reader. In
my narrative essay, Who are we? I feel through that process it assisted me to better voice
myself throughout writing an essay. In the first period I felt taken down by the grading of college
english. Learning to convey a writing style also helped me to understand how a theme should be
presented within the essay. However, along with the style of every wrestler and writer, they both
need their mechanics.

Agliam 2

Unprepared for the first period I knew the second period of writing was my time to score
some points and get ahead. In my essay titled, Sport Fighting, I completely forgot to use the
MLA format to my paper, losing points on my overall essay grade. I knew I could not let a
careless mistake go by once again. I had to stand up and get away from my bad habits in the
second period. Following up on my mistake, in my next essay, The Best Brownies, I made sure
to score point in the MLA format category. Finally, in the third period of the semester I put
together all my tools to complete an essay using outside sources.
A Wrestler gains all of their skills from outside sources such as coaches and practices.
Ending the semester we wrote a compare and contrast research essay using outside sources. I had
only ever written a research essay back in my freshmen year of high school, but I didnt really
learn much from it. In my research essay, Suhi vs. Kimchi, I was required to use at least five
outside sources. It took me a while to get the hang of it, but in the end I improved learning how
to use parenthetical citations throughout an essay.