I would not call myself a writer by any stretch of the imagination. Writing has always been one of my weaker skill sets. The process to just get started writing in general is a very long and difficult one for me. The first thing that I do when faced with a writing assignment is figure out a timeline for milestones that need to be accomplished. Usually there are only three milestones that have major significance. The first milestone is research. This milestone usually takes the longest and is the most difficult. During this time I will evaluate all of my options for the assignment and conduct whatever research and reading is required to write the paper. The second milestone is the draft of my paper. This is always the shortest time commitment. When I draft a paper it is usually in one sitting and I just spew forth all of my ideas in whatever organization that I have formed in my head. The final milestone is revision. After completing my draft I will “walk away” from the assignment for a day or two. Forgetting about the paper for a short period of time allows me to come back to the paper at a later date with a fresh prospective and catch things that I may have not noticed initially. This process has worked well for me because it forces me to spread out the work associated with an assignment instead of waiting till the last minute.
When I have a final draft product I try and get as much feedback from others as possible. My wife Cassie has been immensely helpful during this class. I will read her the assignment prompt and then the paper that I have written. While I read, she will listen and ask me questions if anything I have written is unclear. Beyond that she will ensure that I have completed the assignment that I was tasked. I tend to skew off on a tangent when writing and she has the amazing capability to pull me back in to where I need to be. After my wife has given me the thumbs up I will submit my paper. I am a big proponent of writing as a continual process and was glad to see that even after turning in an assignment to my instructor, Amy Bolaski, we were still able to revise and make improvements. No matter what we are doing it can always be improved upon and having that capability in this class was vital in my learning process.
In the past I have dreaded the idea of having to write an essay because it has not been something that I have enjoyed. When enrolling in the Fall 2009 semester I did not want to take an English class. I had been away from organized education for almost 10 years and I was afraid that I would do very poorly. This class however was not scary at all and I feel that I have learned a great deal about the writing process. As each of my papers were reviewed and commented on by fellow students and Amy, I saw a gradual improvement in my writing style and ability. The past two days I have been constantly in the Writing Center here at Mira Costa and it was an amazing feeling when the staff reviewed my papers and remarked at how well they were written. This feedback has definitely invigorated an interest in writing for fun.
The first paper that I wrote for this class was a rhetorical analysis of “How Twitter will change the way we live” written by Steven Johnson. I had never been exposed to the concept of writing a rhetorical analysis and was very daunted when this was our first assignment. I followed my standard writing process and quickly volunteered to be one of the first to workshop my paper. The responses I received were amazingly helpful. I was not familiar with MLA format at all when I submitted my draft and was quickly indoctrinated into the use of MLA by several of the reviewers. While reviewing works by other students I was able to pick up on several writing strategies that I felt were a great benefit to my own writing.
The second paper that I created for the class was an argument response based on the Lisa Selin Davis article “Does Facebook Replace Face Time or Enhance It?” This paper was something I was far more familiar with. I had been a MySpace user for quite a while and was able to relate a lot of that experience to this paper. Using the strategies that I had learned from the previous assignment I drafted a paper that I was quite comfortable with. I agreed with Davis on her position and was able to incorporate the points that she made in her argument while also providing my own position. This assignment was definitely a boon to my confidence in writing.
The third assignment was by far my favorite. In this assignment I was able to vocalize my position on a topic and persuade my audience. I am by nature a very argumentative person. I enjoy debating topics even just for the sake of a debate. This assignment allowed me to combine my love of debate and my love for technology. My position paper titled “The War between Windows and Macintosh” allowed me to explore my capabilities in debate through another format. In this paper I had to not only provide my own point of the argument but also forecast any opposition. This paper not only helped me develop my writing skill but also develop my skill in debate. The ability to know what the opposition will contend is vital in allowing a preemptive argument to counter their point before it is even provided. I enjoyed every aspect of this paper and feel that it was by far the most beneficial of all the assignments.
The final assignment was a literature review on any chosen topic. I choose the topic of using Stem Cells in research because I feel that both sides of the moral debate have valid arguments and that I wanted to be more informed on their positions. I had never done a research paper like this before and was amazed at the amount of information available through the online databases provided by the library. This paper provided a wealth of knowledge on the aspects of doing research before writing a paper and being more informed about a topic before deciding a position to take. The research skills learned while completing this paper will be very valuable in future classes.
While I may have been very apprehensive in taking English 100 at the beginning of the semester I am very glad that I did. I have definitely seen quite an improvement in my writing skill and I have also noticed that I am far more critical when thinking about a topic. The evolution in my writing has been amazing to see. Reflecting in this preface on the papers I have written throughout the semester has been like riding a rollercoaster. Looking back at the initial drafts of papers and wondering what I was thinking is like opening a time capsule from the past. This experience has been a far departure from my normal routine but this strange trip has definitely been worthwhile.
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