Writing to Learn

All throughout my academic years I have always struggled with writing. From brainstorming to editing, it has always been extremely frustrating for me to compose pieces of literature that are concise and relevant. During this semester, I was challenged with the task of writing four major essays. With each being distinctly different and challenging in their own way, I had to work with my peers and instructor to fulfill each requirement. From these writing processes, I not only flourished as a writer but found a system of writing that works for me. Despite holding on to some of my bad habits, throughout this semester in Writing for the Sciences, I have learned new strategies in drafting and revising, writing to satisfy purpose and audience, collaborating with peers, and locating research sources that provide solid evidence and support for my arguments.

Upon receiving the first assignment, it became very clear that peer review would be an important skill in writing. My peers and I had to learn how to not only give criticism but receive and respond to it. With the Narrative Essay assignment, I learned the basics of constructive criticism. With this assignment, we did a face-to-face review. At first, I was afraid of giving advice to other people because I was insecure about my own writing techniques, however, through conversing with my peers, I learned that my feedback was greatly appreciated. My criticism started out like, “I really enjoyed your piece, but I think you should make it more concise because there is a lot of repetition of ideas” to “I think greater analysis would make this statement clearer. Try asking yourself, ‘How did mainstream media obscure the understanding of African culture?’.” In the first statement, I was very general and trying not to seem overbearing in my comments, however, in the second criticism, I was specific, straight to the point, and I offered advice on how I would go about fixing the issue I pointed out. Constant practice of peer reviewing and doing blind peer reviews really helped to improve my ability to critique others. Blind reviews allowed me to more honest, as I knew my criticism wouldn’t be traced back to me and I wouldn’t be judged for what I said. In addition to improving at giving criticism, I also improved greatly at receiving criticism. In the beginning, I would listen to what others had to say, but I never knew how to incorporate their advice without losing my own voice in my writing. However, I quickly learned how to ask the right questions, and interact with my reviewer as the reviewing process was happening. Learning how to take criticism played a huge role in my drafting and editing process.

The main issue with my writing, that I learned of from writing the second assignment onward, is that I tend to overwrite. This problem was caused by my lack of knowledge in knowing how to write for different types of audiences and that I didn’t realize that different types of literary pieces have different purposes with different requirements. With the Narrative Writing assignment, I had flexibility in that I was able to decide what I wanted to write about and how I wanted to write about it. However, when I got to the metaphor’s essay, I became restricted by the audience and the need for sources. My first draft, quoting Professor Brennan, had “everything but the kitchen sink.” Despite being a draft, it was already 1000 words over the required length and I wasn’t even done adding information. After receiving feedback, I realized that I was adding information that I didn’t necessarily need. In addition, another issue, which became a major issue in my research paper, was that I was writing overly complicated sentences that contained a lot of “fluff”. With a heavy edit, I cut 2,000 words down to 1,200 all while adding more relevant pieces of information. This trend followed me into my critical lens essay and my research paper. I realized that the easiest essay approach for me was to write an essay with all the information I think I need, which creates a strong foundation. Then, after revisiting the essay’s purpose, and consulting with my professor and peers, I edit down my essay to a concise and relevant form. This works for me because once I have all the elements I need, it is easy for me to prioritize what is important. An example of a major edit I did was with my metaphor’s essay. This essay was an academic analysis, meaning I was able to assume that my audience would be familiar with at least the foundation text and the language function. In my draft, however, I spent almost a paragraph and a half’s worth explaining those two elements. I ended up turning a paragraph with information like, “In order to understand the relationship between two metaphors and their meanings, it is important to understand the mechanics of a metaphor and how it works in language” to a sentence that said, “By offering a basis of comparison, people are able to use the information they already possess to familiarize themselves with something foreign.” Being able to make these kinds of edits dramatically changed the effectiveness of my essays at conveying their purpose and intended message.

Finally, the last takeaway I got from Writing for the Sciences was being able to properly research and find credible sources. This skill was perfected over the course the Metaphor, Critical Lens, and Research Essay. In each of these assignments, I needed to find proof of my arguments and material for analysis. Before this course, I would simply type in a sentence describing my topic in Google and use whatever sites gave me the information I needed. These sites were usually within the page of results and rarely gave me published pieces or academic reviews. However, after several library visits and a personal lesson from Professor Brennan, I have a list of databases ranging from Academic One to Gale that guarantee credible and relevant sources. Additionally, I also learned that Wikipedia can be an amazing start to any research project as each page, despite rumors, have credibility and a list of sources below that can be used as well. This was essential in my research-based drafting process because the better the sources, the easier it was to stay on topic, as the sources simply guided the structure of the essay. All I needed to produce was a good analysis.

In a final examination of my progress throughout the semester, I can proudly say that my writing has greatly improved. Not only has my writing become more cohesive and concise, but it is also now able to convey an intended message. Despite my progress, one skill that I wish I put more time into is outlining. I believe that outlining can help me organize my essays more efficiently before I begin writing, as well as help me prioritize the information I want to include. Furthermore, it might cut down on editing time as I might be able to see the formation of “fluff” in the outline and I can work on being concise the first time around. This is definitely something that I will be working on next semester in addition to perfecting my drafting strategy. I have truly learned so much from this one semester of Writing for the Sciences and it is all thanks to my peers and Professor Brennan. Writing has always been an ongoing struggle for me, but I think now I am starting to enjoy it.