Last One

English 102 was definitely a resourceful and encouraging class. There were several things new to me, as well as so things that I had knowledge of but needed a refresher on those. The main thing was the TS/CD paragraph. This format helped out a lot during paper writing. It was beneficial in the organization; previously my paragraphs had no meaning to them. They often did not make sense. After getting a hang of TS/CD I feel that my paragraphs have improved tremendously. OWL, on the other hand, was a resource I have heard of before, but never tried. Once I went to the site, I realized how much beneficial information was available there. I have relied on OWL on few instances to get me through a difficult writing situation. I feel that having “Cite Everything” told to us over and over again really helped out. In my previous writing I never gave enough credit to the sources that provided me with the information that I needed. Also, I never had a good grasp on writing the citations. Having to think about citations during the writing process definitely made me give all the credit to the smart people that provided me with new learning material, but also, material that made my papers complete. After doing the Using Smart Verbs assignment, I have started to think about other words that I could substitute to the ones that are always used. It has helped me to think about expanding my vocabulary when it comes to writing.
Previously when I wrote my papers, I never read them over. They were done as soon as I stopped typing. I realized that while I re-read the paper to myself out loud helps a lot. It is a new editing technique that I have not used previously. I did not use it much at the beginning of this class either. As time went on during the semester, and it was being repeated to us to read our work out loud to ourselves is beneficial to catching our mistakes. Once I began reading my papers I realized how many mistakes I had in my writing, missing commas, wrong sentence structure, and grammatical errors. After I read my last paper out loud I realized how many terrible papers I must have turned in before. That might explain some lower scores. Another thing that helped in the editing process was the Peer Editing. Getting a chance to read other peoples work and seeing their styles made me realize a few things that could improve my writing. I believe that during this semester I have become a better writer, I have learned how to be more critical of my own work, but also of others. I have realized that there are words that we can substitute that will make our paper more “spicy”.