English 101 seems to be the most challenging class I ever took. It requires critical thinking, research, literary, and rhetorical analysis. As a non-English native speaker, I have never thought that I would be able to make such improvements in my writing skills. After taking this class, I have gained the aptitude to articulate what I want to tell the reader in different ways. I am no more focusing only on grammar mistakes, instead, I look at how to make my sentences more effective and concise. In this reflective essay, I will discuss some of my own writings from the beginning to the end of the semester, showing the ways that my writing has improved. My writing skills have improved in different ways, such as the manner of writing fast, the sentence structure, the grammar, and the essay types differentiation.
Instead, it takes time and a lot of drafts to get a nice result. I understood that even though I have some doubts about my ideas, it is important to start somewhere even with a ‘shitty first draft’. Now I outline the main ideas that I want to talk about and then write everything that comes to mind. This is how I make my first draft.
The second point that I want to talk about is my grammar and sentence structure. After taking this course, I now have a much better understanding of how to correctly use proper grammar, transitional phrases, and proper tenses in my writing. One of the first papers that I wrote for my English 101 class was titled ‘Green Peace Video Advertisement Analysis’. I first read some articles on the Internet to get some concrete knowledge on climate change, then I started writing my first draft. I selected on the draft what I think are the best ideas and I developed them in different paragraphs. I read the paper from the beginning to get some inspiration for the conclusion. At the end of the writing, I was sure that my paper was perfect, but after I did a second lecture, I found some mistakes.
Ever since I started this program, I have noticed a significant change in the way I write. For starters, I have gained extreme knowledge of MLA style, which I was not using correctly previously. I had to learn how to properly perform in-text citations and cite my references. Chapter 3 of the book named ‘They Say/ I Say’ that we studied, made me learn about quotations using. Moreover, I learned how to properly create level heading for my papers. I have also realized that having proper headings helps in writing a paper easily. The hardest part of writing a paper is organizing the thoughts and making it flow smoothly. Headings allowed me to organize my thought process when writing a paper.
The third point about my writing skills improvement is the fact that I learned how to write an argumentative essay. I understood that this essay is different from a normal one, In the sense that I need to include facts that give credit to my statements and convince the reader. I wrote an argumentative essay on November 21st, 2019. The topic of this essay was ‘People Today Have Become Too Dependent on Technology’. During the writing process, I made a first draft at the beginning, which I shaped gradually to make a final copy. I have learned to make connections between texts and my eye for detail and description has improved. For example, I sequenced my argumentative essay using transition words like ‘furthermore’, ‘to summarize’, and so on. I also became grammatically better and I realized that I need to be very specific when writing. I learned that instead of just saying ‘car’, I need to say ‘red Mercedes’, for example. In the argumentative essay, I wanted to say that taxis disappeared in many cities because of ride-sharing companies. To be more specific, I wrote: “They have now disappeared in many cities due to Uber and Lyft, two ride-sharing companies”. This is a huge improvement that I still could not believe happened. There was not any verb tense mistake. As result, I had an A for this argumentative essay that I wrote. From getting a D for my first paper, I now get an A for the last one a couple of months later after taking all the lessons in English 101.
However, there are some areas in my writing that I still have to improve. In fact, it is not only to know how to organize the essay but also how to make it persuasive enough, and how to minimize grammar, spelling, and punctuation mistakes. I have some room and some areas to upgrade my writing skills. I am confident that the more I stay in the United States and practice English, the more I will improve my writing skills.
To sum it up, I have learned a lot during this English 101 class, but more than this, I know in what areas I need to improve my skills. I do know that this class has improved my writing skills. I have much better grammar and MLA usage. My thoughts are more organized, and I do not use run-on sentences as in one of the first papers that I wrote. My grades were low at the beginning of the semester, and toward the end, they started to get better. I know that my writing may not be very good, but what is sure is that it has improved and I am very satisfied.