Be the change you wish to see in writing
Throughout my years in school, I have had to write many essays and papers. Some were easy to write and some weren’t. The papers most difficult for me to write were the ones where I had to lift evidence and analyze those evidence. It was hard for me because sometimes when “analyzing” evidence I would just recap what the evidence said. I have improved my writing my many ways such as in my punctuation, analyzing, and peer-reviewing.
My punctuation even though I’m working on it is still not my best. Sometimes I put too many commas and don’t know where they go. For example in my first paper the Immigration Narrative I wrote “She works in a salon. Sometimes she goes to work at 7 am and comes back home at 11 pm and the next day wakes up at 8 am to go back to work.” I feel that after salon instead of a period a comma should go there, but I’m not completely sure. In my Reply Paper, I write, “Moms have a special intuition, they know how we feel and when things are wrong.” In this sentence, I am not sure what goes between “intuition” and “they” if a comma, a colon, or a semicolon.
As I’ve said, analyzing has always been a struggle for me in writing, I tend to rephrase what the evidence is saying. On the other hand, this semester I have learned how to analyze my evidence.
In college, I have learned how to peer review. Peer reviewing was very hard for me because I didn’t very focus much or didn’t know the purpose of it if the teacher was going to end up reviewing it. Now I have learned that peer review is important because this way for me to view the different perspectives of my work and also allows me to get new ideas and make my essay better. In my first peer review of this semester, I had the question “What is the strongest aspect of this piece? Which parts work well?” I said, “The strongest aspect of this piece is the story that Daniel’s mom is telling about her experience in Cambodia. So the details.” instead of going more into depth and saying something like that the strongest aspect of this piece was his use of sensory details and the way he knew how to connect it to this mean point. In my latest peer review you can see that the question I got was: “Evaluate your peer’s thesis. Is it a strong thesis? Why or why not?” and my answer was “My peer’s thesis has a very good idea but it is too broad. She should make it more specific.” This conveys how unlike my first peer review I answered the question correctly and when straight to the point. In that same peer review I got the question, “Evaluate the evidence presented in the paper to support the thesis. Is the evidence sufficient? Have quotations been adequately explained?” for this question I stated, “The evidence is sufficient and I really loved how she quoted and analyzed each point.” In this case, I showed my peer what I liked and felt would make their paper great.
Looking back at the things that have changed is good. In life, in academics, and in general. We learn a lot about ourselves. My writing changes every day because every day I am learning something new about writing. Sometimes things will change and some things I will just have to work on. Some of my struggles in writing are/were peer-reviewing, punctuation, and analyzing; however, working and practicing them will help me improve and become a better writer. In addition, it is very important to see where you are needing help and find that help either with your professors or online, there are many options for help.
