Elizabeth Venegas

Professor Ditch

English 114A

9 May 2019

Writing Improvement

My writing has improved over this last semester from the help of my professor, the LRC

and feedback from my peers. I feel like I have improved most on the MLA format, my works

cited page as well as how I use my sources in the book. Although I am not an expert in my work

as I still have room for improvement I feel like these small improvements can help me with

future papers.

I was able to get a lot of feedback on my work over this past semester from various

people in various places. One being the LRC which has helped me on my thesis, conclusions as

well as intros. My tutor was very helpful each time I went to go see him and he always knew in

what way I needed help and what I would be thinking but could not interpret into my papers.

Another one of my biggest people to help me were our peer reviews during class. I was able to

have someone read my work and catch mistakes that I had missed when writing my work as well

as writing what I had missed or had gotten wrong in my format. One of the biggest helps that I

received was from my professor who would review our final work and give us another week to

edit anything that did not meet the criteria she wanted for the paper. This was really useful as it

gave us more time to work on our paper for any last-minute touch ups. From all this work I was

able to get out how to fix my MLA format.

 One way my writing has improved is that now I know how to format my essays using

MLA format. Last semester my teacher told us to use MLA, but she never instructed us to it and

expected us to know. I thought MLA format was just the way the heading was designed, and I

had no idea about the rest of the criteria that MLA use. Due to my Professor I was able to trust

Purdue Owl as a source of how to format my essays as well as with reminders of my professor of

what she expects from us. I was even able to fix mistakes that I did not know how to do on my

computer. On one of my essays I had a problem with putting the page number on the header I

would change the number when I printed it, but I was finally able to change it to display the

correct numbers. Apart from the format I was also able to practice how to work on my work

cited page.

My writing skills have improved through many factors one of which being the work

cited page. Professor Ditch’s class helped especially on this section since I can get into trouble if

I do not cite my sources and especially get a failing grade. Her sources and class work really

helped me understand that the work cited is just as important as the actual essay itself. When I

went to the grammar lab the tutor looked over my work as well as the work cited, and he said it

was very impressive and there were no errors on that page. My work cited has improved

throughout the semester as well other things like my ability to use sources.

I was able to learn how to uses sources correctly in which my teacher called a quote

sandwich. I am still not proficient in the quote sandwich, but I was able to get a better

understanding of what I need to do to introduce a quote and how to explain the quote afterwards

and prove that its relevance and that it belongs in my essay. I was able to use many quotes from

our readings, online sources and the book that we read on our own. Although I still use some
mistakes when using in-work citations or when I forget to properly explain the citation, I know

that I am able to revise my work and the format I am supposed to use.

While my writing may not be perfect, it has certainly improved through the help of

countless reliable sources. These sources found mistakes every time I used them which only

proves that the editing process for writing takes time and effort. My essays formats, works cited

page as well as the citations are just a few of the things that I was able to improve on for my

class.