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Tyler Simons

Professor Moore

ENGL 1301

28 April 2019

Reflective Paper

When I was decided to go back to college this semester I was hoping the military had

replaced the English credits I needed, I was not so lucky. I had to take the one class I did not

want to take the with all the papers to write, English. Growing up I was probably my biggest

critic when I had to write I struggled to thing what to put on paper and never thought I was good

at it. Many people like the way I write, but even in this class it is hard for me to get my thoughts

out and even when I do not think it makes sense or is not well written. This class has helped me

gain some more confidence in my writing in these short sixteen weeks. Learning how to do

proper citations, organizing my paragraphs and using peer reviews has helped me improve my

writing skills.

When starting this class, I figured I knew how to properly cite and quote papers, but I still

had much to learn. On your work cited page all sources need to be arranged in alphabetical order

and formatted to be hanging. I learned when you are working on the work cited page there are a

few websites that can help correctly format your sources. This semester I utilized bibme to help

and it also puts the work cited in alphabetical order. Using the school library there are databases

that will format and organize the sources and citations. The way I learned to quote and

paraphrasing in my papers in high school is much different than the way it is done in this class.

Using brackets and capitalizing the first letter in a sentence when making a quote is very
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different from high school but makes quoting easier. This was my biggest mistake on my first

paper this semester, but I learned from it and will not make this mistake on any future papers.

Paragraph and sentences structure are the most important part of writing papers. My

biggest struggle this year has been topic sentences and linking my paper together in one fluid

form. Even on this paper I do not know how well I am doing at that. This year I have learned to

take my time and it is alright to reorganize a paper to help with the flow or keep the continuity.

On my rhetorical analysis paper, I had to move my paragraphs around with two of my

paragraphs being about technology and my last being about storm safety. It was better for me

putting the two technology paragraphs together instead of jumping to storms in the middle. I am

slowly improving on ways to form my paragraphs and continue to find and try new ways to

grow.

Normally I have always done school work alone, but this semester has shown me the

benefit to having others help and give me feedback on my work. Peer reviews has been the best

tool for me this semester when I have been writing. Normally when I just write my paper or

review it alone or at home I do not notice even the most common problems. Thanks to the peer

reviews we have in class fresh eyes can look at my work and help find things I miss. My problem

when writing my papers has been punctuation or my sentences not making sense. Thanks to

others looking I have been able to eliminate most of these problems on the final draft of my

papers. I have also been able to help others with their papers with my different way of thinking

or noticing mistakes others miss.

Proper citations, ways to organize my paragraphs and the usefulness of peer reviews are

ways I have improved my writing skills this semester. Thanks to the military, I believe I have

become a sponge with the way I can learn and absorb new ways to improve skills I already have.
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Hopefully I can continue to improve my writing skills and gain more confidence in my writing

process. I have been told I am good at writing and my hope is to eventually think my writing is

improving. This year was an eye opener with my writing and I am glad not to have to take

English 1302 for my degree plan. If the papers were to get harder or longer I do not know if I

will survive all of that writing.