The Writing Process

First Semester of College

            The first semester can be challenging for some. For me, communication and writing is a class where I learned how to enhance my writing skills. “It is perfectly okay to write garbage, as long as you edit brilliantly” (C. J. Cherryh). This quote describes how I view writing because my pre-writing is never good, but when I start to edit it I turn it into a well typed paper. The writing process has exposed both my strengths and weaknesses. Brainstorming is one of my strengths because I can get a full understanding of what it is I have to write about. Editing is one of my weaknesses because when I re-read my own paper I usually don’t notice my mistakes. The work in this portfolio demonstrates that I have used methods of pre-writing and critical thinking. Though I have made some progress in editing and revising, I work to do to get a full understanding of planning and writing a good paper.

            Within a few weeks of the semester I notice I had patterns that were both good and bad. One of my greatest strengths was brainstorming. Brainstorming allowed me to come up with ideas before I had to start writing. For example, one of our first assignments was to write an identity poem about our life growing up. Before writing this poem I had to brainstorm and think back to what it was like growing up. Another example would be writing our first journal one water. Water was a tricky topic because there is so much on it. I started coming up with multiple ideas then narrowed it down. In addition to brainstorming, free-writing would be another one of my strengths I developed over the semester. From the beginning, we were told to start free-writing and put down any ideas we had. WA1, was our first essay about Helen Keller and her “Most Important Day.” We started out by writing about what our most important day was, and then started comparing our most important day to Helen Keller’s.

            With strengths come weaknesses, and one of my weaknesses in writing was a bad habit of repeating in a paper. I repeat myself in papers often and I’m unaware of it. For instance, in WA3 I used the same example of describing the poem as the “circle of life.” Repeating is bad for a paper because it will bore the reader. To fix this I make sure to have numerous examples before writing to avoid repetition in my paper. For example, in WA2 I planned out many examples to write about so I would not have to refer back to a point later on in the later. Another one of my weaknesses this semester was going off topic. I tend to go off topic if I don’t have enough to write about or if I overthink ideas. In WA3, I started going off topic and this caused my paper to look as if I was talking about a different topic. Another example, in journal four, I started to talk more about the causes of the poem then what is actually happening. One solution I found to help me elude this problem is to editing the paper before submission, so I can catch any flaws I might have.

            This semester’s class has taught me a lot about being a writer, student, researcher, and critical thinker. In the beginning of the semester I thought I knew how to write a well written essay. When we started learning about the writing process, I noticed many mistakes I had been making along the way. The progress I made this semester reveals about me as a writer as one that has a good imagination and well thought out points. As a student, it reveals how I can take the information I have learned and apply it directly. As a researcher, we had to do a lot of researcher this semester whether it was online or in a book. Researching helped me gather ideas and examples and apply good information in my papers. As a critical thinking, this semester has taught me how to think outside the box and explore new concepts. I can apply the knowledge and skills I developed in this class by using them in future classes for when I need to write a paper. For example, I just finished writing a paper for another class and before I turned it in I made sure to use steps in the writing process to be sure I had no mistakes. This class has helped me get a better understanding of what is expected in a college essay, and this will help me in the future.

Work Cited

Gonzaba, Nick. “Still Water Meditation.” Poem Analysis. University of the Incarnate Word, 13 November 2013, Print.

Gonzaba, Nick. “Most Important Day.” Essay. University of the Incarnate Word, 24 September 2013, Print.

Gonzaba, Nick.“Water is Life.” Essay. University of the Incarnate Word, 10 October 2013, Print.