When writing essays for school or stories for yourself or friends, there is always going to be some difference in each writing depending on your skills and knowledge on how to write an essay. Throughout my time in school, I always struggled with writing, not knowing how to write a proper essay but in this semester in college I learned new strategies on how to improve on my writing in this semester and because of that, I am able to write more fluently and able to actually be able to write something that is somewhat interesting and has some tone. When I was in highschool I would always be told that my writings are boring and could only read them in a monotone voice.
Throughout my life I’ve been shy, even till now I’m an introvert and it is difficult for me to try to speak up to people or start a conversation. There are many things going through peoples heads when trying to speak out to others, thinking that they might judge you or make fun of you because of what you said but I have learned that the majority of people don’t care and some actually listen and try to help you out in certain situations. Sometimes I try to bring up some ideas about something that might interest someone but at the same time I could get shut down and make jokes out of what you say or just rub off and ignore what I say and because of this class I have improved in opening up and thinking ahead.
In the beginning of this semester I was told to write about one meaningful moment about myself and honestly, I have a lot of things that happened in my life and I couldn’t decide on one actual meaningful moment in my life, so I decided to pick something that took me time to overcome and fell in love with, which was snowboarding. My main audience for that essay was for people that are also trying to start to snowboard and are too scared or are already snowboarding and might’ve had the same experience as me. I also tried to have current snowboarders to try to get their friends to try it but not teach them because it could end horribly wrong, for example, when I tried to teach my two friends how to snowboard and one of them broke their wrists because he broke off from the group and slipped on ice. “I got my friends to start snowboarding and on the second day of them learning how to snowboard, one of them fell on their hand trying to catch himself on a fall and broke his wrist, so from that day on I would not even trust myself in teaching others.” (Meaningful moment) Then again they are now going down black diamonds with me like it is nothing after a couple lessons with a certified instructor.
In this class I have learned many different types of strategies to write a better essay and was introduced to a new type of way to improve your writing which is to have someone review it and to have them comment on what part they like, what part is good and where there should be some improvement. At first I would always stall for like 2 hours and have no idea how to start my writing or what to include; not knowing how to plan out how you will write the essay. When I was told about the strategies, it helped out a lot with the style that the writing should be in, having a specific idea of who the audience should be and what the proper tone should be to match the topic that I am writing about and the same style, for example if it would be an inspiring writing, I would try to make the writing sound fun and enjoyable to try to pull the reader in.
With all these new types of essays to write in each phase for this semester, it makes me go one step closer to getting better and better at writing and telling stories for people. When I wrote about the rhetorical piece, I tried to pull people in who might be interested in science and learning about biology the same way I am. What really got me into biology was the genetic mutations that scientists are able to perform on animals and people and just natural cell mutations that might cause someone to have some allergies and how scientists would soon be able to get rid of that by mutating it. Using in-text citations helps a lot when trying to write a research paper because you have all the facts right in front of you and do not need to really go out on the internet and search up extra things, unless you are trying to add something that might not be mentioned in the text.
In the most recent research paper for phase 3, I had to write about if mental illness is an epidemic in America and I said yes since I know from my own experience and research from across the country. This phase was unnecessarily difficult because I was required to have at least 4 sources while I was probably able to write the majority of the report with my own knowledge and experience. This helped me be able to research something and actually take my time to read the articles and learn about the topic I am supposed to write about. Many points in the report were from myself and my own personal experience with family members and friends who have been struggling with some sort of mental illness such as depression or anxiety. I have also learned how to properly cite the articles that you used. Before, I would just quote and give a page number but with online articles I learned I have to give the authors name and the name of the article at the end.
Throughout this semester and with all 4 phases finished, I think I have learned a lot and have improved in my writings. I am now able to properly write my own story and have new tools to use to make it sound better. Many people keep learning new things throughout time and from that they get better and better every time they write a new type of paper or just read and look at details in different writings. There are still a lot of things for me to learn and to improve on and I will try to keep getting better every time.
