1. Writer’s Statement
I came in thinking that I was a lousy writer. I was only used to doing the regular analytical essay in high school, which had the same structure every time. A hook, thesis statement, claim, evidence, and analysis. In high school, my teacher would give me a good grade for my essays, yet I knew that it wasn’t my best writing because I would do all of them the night before. However, no matter how bad the essay I submitted was, I would always get a good grade, and my teacher would not give me any feedback on my paper other than “good job!”. Since I saw this, I would just write until I would reach the word count. I never paid attention to the words I used or repetition in my writing since I did not like to read my essays. I thought that if I didn’t read it, I wouldn’t have to make any changes, and it was also the first draft so that I could save that for the final draft.
It became a bad habit that I struggled to write about myself when I started working on my college personal statement. I could no longer write about myself, which made me hate writing. In particular, I struggled with our Inquiry paper; I found myself going back to my high school habits of doing that same structure. That I did not realize I was doing the assignment wrong. I am supposed to be writing about my journey researching this topic, not just a plain research paper. I needed to learn how to put more thoughts and reactions to my findings. I found it hard to transition between this and the research that I found. But when I went to office hours, Professor Zimmerman told me to list the most critical pieces of evidence that supported my findings and connected to my topic of Language loss in First-Gen Children of Immigrant Parents. Doing this helped clear out the structure of my writing and helped with the repetition.
Repetition was something that I often saw in my writing, and I would always repeat certain words and phrases that I could have written concisely. I continued to do that to structure my essays, and with the use of freewriting, I was able to find better personal examples to include in my writing that supported my findings. I guess this goes back to my old habit in high school, in which I would just note to reach a specific word count. There are still many things that I can improve on in my writing, one of them being SCVA, which was plastered all over my Inquiry essay that can elevate my writing. Throughout this semester, I have gained back a love for writing that I had lost a long time ago. I see myself enjoying writing for the first time, and I can tell metally feel how much my writing has improved. Whenever I look at a piece of paper, I can’t help but think of ways to improve it.
My Writing Journey 