Rodriguez 1

Monserrat Rodriguez

Professor Martinez

ENGL 1302-209

8 May 2023

Bringing it to an End

Brainstorm. Type. Edit. Revive. Turn in. This repetitive process must be followed to

synthesize a compelling essay. For me, the most challenging part of writing an essay is making it

sound good and look good because ideas I have many. This course has taught me to organize my

thoughts and make them flow into one another. I have learned other essential techniques to help

me in my writing. Writing essays is not my strong suit, and it costs me a lot of work to get to my

final draft. I hope that I have progressed in my work as a writer and that it can be seen in my

portfolio. This class has taught me how to write a good essay presenting my ideas.

When it comes to revising, I make sure to always look out for the rhetorical choices I

make. The last major essay I had to write had to be argumentative, and I always had to remember

that I had to be affirmative. I could not be saying could, might, can, and I had to be clear and

sure of myself and my perspective, which can be thrilling. When I returned to revise this essay, I

deleted any words or sentences that made my argument weak. I also ensured I did not lose my

voice within the ideas of the other authors. It was necessary to add sources that appealed to ethos

because we had to strengthen our argument to make the essay credible, but I added too much in

one paragraph. The point of the sources was to enforce not to take away from my ideas, so I had

to cut back on the citations that had too much text. Once I did that, I added more of my ideas to

make myself heard.

On the other hand, essay two was supposed to include only other authors’ ideas, and I

couldn’t express myself on the topic. When I revised that essay, I changed some of the

vocabulary to make it easier to read by the general public. In my opinion, it was an easy read

because I was exposed to the topic, and people who might not have prior knowledge will not

know how to interpret it. I also remained straight to the point with this essay. If I saw I was

getting too wordy, I cut those parts out because only the pure facts had to be presented. I also

took out excess information that did not support the main argument. What I did was that if the

sentence alone didn’t correlate with the topic sentence, I omitted it. I tend to add sentences that

don’t prove anything, and they take up space. I always have a big word count because I repeat

myself and add too many words. In some essays, I repeat the same ideas but with different terms;

nonetheless, it is repetitious and makes the essay hard to read. I took out many sentences that just

repeated what other sentences said.

When designing the website portfolio, I wanted to make something neat and easy to

navigate. I kept all my essays in mind and what I wrote in each one. The design had to be

something related to the topics of my essays. For my first essay, I wrote about studying methods.

This experiment had something to do with learning and college, so I wanted to add images I have

taken here on campus; that way, I can build credibility because I am an actual college student. I

also wanted this website to represent me and the ideas I have. My other two essays are about a

similar topic: water scarcity. I decided to add pictures of the planet because that is what is being

affected. I also added images that captured bodies of water, such as oceans, because they are a

pleasant sight, and someday, all that might be ruined or gone. I also added images of river basins

dried up because that is what is happening around the world. This will create an emotional
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appeal to people and show the gravity of this problem. That is what I am trying to do throughout

my essays, but the images; will show my audience an actual picture of the problem.

When I had to return to my essays to revise them, I could see them with fresh eyes. I

could analyze it as if it were someone else’s work, and I saw flaws I had not seen before. I have

also learned many things with the help of the assignments from the class. Before, I didn’t know

what a portfolio was and what it was needed for. The “Assembling Writing Portfolio” homework

showed me what a portfolio is for and its purpose. Now I know what I need to do and what I

need to add to be able to display my work and demonstrate my progress throughout this

semester. Other questions that involved reading the book showed me how to organize my

portfolio to make it good. To complete this project, I needed to revise my essays. I realized that

when I added in-text citations, I was only doing direct quotes and not adding citations in

different ways. From a reading I had done for homework, I remembered that I could also

paraphrase or summarize other authors’ work, and I changed some of the citations to make them

paraphrase. I also remember having an assignment about “Wordy Phrases and Redundancies”,

which taught me how to cut back on unnecessary words or phrases. I completed other

assignments that have shaped me to become the writer I am, and it was a lot of work, but it was

all possible now that I feel more prepared.

ENGL 1302 was more than what I expected it was going to be. I will leave the course

with a lot more knowledge. I learned how to write a research paper about the experiment that I

designed. I didn’t expect that I was going to learn how to design an experiment in my English

class, but it turned out to be easy with the help of the professor. This I will be able to use in the

future for other courses that involve more hands-on labs. I also learned how to cite and

paraphrase other authors properly. This will help when I do essays in other classes; I will be
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comfortable using other people’s work and giving credit where credit is due. I also learned that

citations could not be put at the end of a paragraph because I have to close with my thoughts. I

learned the art of rhetoric, I have yet to master this art, but I have learned how to work with it. It

has been a challenge indeed, but it will serve as a help when I try to persuade others in any other

course or any career I decide to pursue. I will have many takeaways from the course that will

leave me with knowledge for the rest of my life.

On the contrary, finding something I learned that could not be applied to other courses is

hard. However, learning about water scarcity will not help me in math classes such as statistics

or algebra. I read so much on the topic that I can talk about it comfortably, but it will not help me

in my non-science courses. Learning to use commas is very important, but it will not help me in

my anatomy or nutrition classes. I also learned how to create a conversation with different

articles, which was interesting but will not aid me in other areas of study. All in all, everything

we learn is good, and it is something that will stay with us forever. That is the amazing thing

about knowledge; no one can take it away.

I have remained consistent with my writing strengths, which are making a good thesis

statement and providing good evidence. I have always been able to state my main idea because I

always stand by what I believe. However, I have been working on making my thesis easier to

recognize in the intro so that the reader can quickly identify the thesis statement. I also provide

good evidence to support my main ideas. I like to research topics I write about or things I

present. That way, I can speak or write easily about that topic. When it comes to adding citations,

I know what I want to add to strengthen my argument. It is also important to acknowledge

writing weaknesses we might have; for example, I need help organizing my thoughts into

coherent essays. I can have many good ideas, but I find it challenging to make my essays flow,
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but I have worked on that weakness, and now I know how to organize my essays to make them

flow. I also have learned to identify when I am being repetitive in my essays, I used to have a

problem where I just repeated the same idea but in different words, and I learned there is no need

for that. When I revise my essays, I see what sentences are necessary and which are repetitions.

There is always room for progress, and I can still work on many other things to improve my

writing skills.

Working with tech on the computer is a challenge; making this website was new to me,

but the Weebly app facilitated the project. I don’t have much creativity when designing things,

but I gave it a try. I was worried that my design would not meet the criteria since I know I am not

the best at this, but I gave it my best try. I tried to make it as neat as possible to appeal to the

viewer’s eye. This was the most challenging part of the project for me, but it was fine in the end.

Now I will know how to work with the app if I need it in the future. What was easy for me was

putting all my work together from the entire course duration. I was able to access all the files of

my work via my Blackboard. Then I just had to put it all on the website to showcase all the work

I completed. Adding links to the work was also easy, and they all worked.

After writing this essay, I can see that I have come a long way, and I remember that I

didn’t have all this knowledge before entering this course. My identity as a writer has grown, and

I have become more aware of the writing techniques needed to make a coherent essay. I can now

analyze my work and see the improvements I still need to make. Before, I would not pay much

attention to what I would write, and I would do it to get it done, but now I try to see what works

best and what goes where. I try to give my essays the time and attention they require. Now I can

accept criticism from others to enhance my writing.

This course showed me that writing essays is much more complex than it seems; many

skills and techniques go into synthesizing a good paper. My professor showed me that it takes

preparation and a lot of thought. He would lead us through each part, brainstorming, researching,

and writing portion. He didn’t want anyone to miss out on the English 1302 experience. What

helped me was the guidance he provided when writing the essay. He showed me exactly what to

work on, and I can only thank him for his patience. Writing is a craft with different turns and

obstacles, but it allows us to express our ideas and see the potential within ourselves. I have

learned that I express myself better when I write rather than when I talk. When I write,

everything comes together. Writing opens doors to new possibilities, and it allows us to explore

them. I used to dread writing essays now I see it as a new opportunity to explore my thoughts

and express them in my writing.