Brandon Colcord

Professor Frank

English 110

November 30th, 2021

Writing PromptEssay #2 FD, FD

Introduction to Essay #2

During this semester there have been several obstacles I have encountered within my writing, each essay I wrote obviously got better than the previous. With that being said,  I have chosen my second essay as my “showcase writing prompt” not because I believe it is my best piece of writing but because I believe this essay shows the most improvement from the first draft to the final draft. This essay was about the perceptions about a liberal arts education or receiving a higher education in general. Within my essay I stand by the fact a liberal arts degree is not a waste of time or money. With the first draft you can see where I struggled to develop a decent Barclays paragraph, along with picking smaller passages to quote. A Lot of my structure needs work but I believe all the material was there just not easy to find. In my essay’s first draft I just made a claim and added all these quotes in support of it but had no flow to my writing which made my claim seem weak and seemed like my writing was becoming repetitive. However, in the final draft I added a whole naysayer paragraph, although not recommended, helped develop my essay so it had a flow. I Also changed my second paragraph around so that it had more support towards my main claim in the introduction, I also went back through to ensure all the paragraphs did the same. Alot of feedback provided from my peers was more towards grammatical errors and punctuation rather than the structure. Although this essay made me struggle, I was able to learn from all the mistakes I made and Incorporated them into my final draft.   

Learning Outcomes from the Essay/Semester 

1. Throughout all of my essays I’ve had several revisions that needed to be made prior to turning it in to my professor. In essay two my peers left several comments some include, “add second source quotes to some of your paragraphs (to make Barclay-style paragraph)” or “make sure each body paragraph does work to help prove or support your thesis” and I realised they were about the way my piece was written, essentially each paragraph could have been its own essay idea because the ideas within my paragraphs didn’t go back to the main topic/claim, so in agreement I decided to cut most of my quote’s in half and put my paragraphs into a barclays formula that will help me push the reader towards my main thesis which was “Money spent towards a Liberal Arts education is never a waste and will benefit you in every sense”. Not all revisions helped with developing my essay as a whole for example “i’m not 100% sure if this is correct formatting, i think it would just be (Scheuer 5) but im not sure on this”, I’ll admit some were just minor mistakes in grammar made because I was rushing to ensure all the information I wanted was put into writing. However, I believe any feedback is good feedback because it will only help me improve my writing. Other feedback from my peers was about everything being in agreement, no “naysayers” which made it difficult to read because of the biased way the writing seemed. As I looked into possible naysayers I was able to demonstrate my ability to understand the authors within the articles better, and after looking at possible naysayers within their pieces it helped me develop a “naysayer paragraph” that I feel brought my piece together.   

2. Throughout my three essays you can see that I have no issue pulling out quotes and making them work in my favor to help develop a piece that persuades the reader to take my side. However, In my second essay especially I still struggle to put the naysayer in my piece in a Barclays formula that benefits my writing. I realise I can stack the quote’s and work them like facts but I need to work on putting both sides of the argument within the paragraph to help me better develop my claim. As seen in HW #6, I can understand how the authors within other articles use both sides to help benefit their writing, I just need to work on my structure within my writing and do the same. Also shown in HW #8 I have been able to summarize quotes and paraphrase in a way that helps my readers better understand where I am coming from and how I am articulating this piece of writing by someone else.   

3. Throughout my education I was taught using a highlighter was a must, and to highlight “key terms” or “passages”. It wasn’t until after I did the first annotation assignment that I realised I was doing it wrong the whole time. You can clearly see in the first assignment that I highlighted almost everything, with not much to say on why I highlighted it. Although I was drawing facts, claims, and evidence to support my thesis like I was taught in highschool, I wasn’t understanding the author’s real purpose, or seeing how the author used certain individuals to make a point. Furthermore, I developed the ability to quickly preview my reading prior to actually reading them because for me I found it does help me better understand what topic I am going to be learning and the authors stand on that topic. Learning what to mark was easy at this point because I just learned anything that “drew my attention” or “made me question” what the author was saying was worth actually annotating. I’ve also found just quickly analyzing the text that stands out the most to me and writing why I circled/underlined that specific text right then and there, because if I end up waiting until I finish to go back and analyze I end up forgetting why I highlighted that certain text. In conclusion, I’ve learned lots of skills from the articles and text we’ve been required to analyze, and I feel the ability to question, connect, challenge the authors text has made it a hundred times easier to develop your own personal claim on the matter and create an article/essay of your own, from your own standpoint.    . 

4. My peer reviews, or my peer guidance could use some work. I tried my best to have a conversation with the individual rather than leave a comment. This was because most comments were short and to the point and didn’t really give my peers a chance to understand what I am trying to say. Unfortunately I am the type of person to just say “good job” or “strong claim” and I don’t see how that helps my fellow students. Throughout the semester I was trying to figure out better ways to provide feedback and I realized just being blunt, honest, yet careful of their emotions is the best way, and with that I was able to provide feedback like,  “this is a strong claim, keep looking for evidence to help support it” or “Great summary of the “they say” but not hearing much of your “I say” on how it helps your claim” these comments helped develop conversations with my peers that made me question certain aspects of my writing and I believe giving the feedback and receiving it helps you develop a critical mindset and helps expand ideas/possibilities on the same subject and it’s honestly pretty amazing.  

5 & 6.)  The essay’s I’ve completed throughout this semester have each been a work in progress. Although I feel I did a great job going through and using proper citation in the final draft of my second essay, you can clearly see in the first draft of this same essay that I did not put much thought, or effort in ensuring my punctuation and grammar were accurate. I even had comments from peers like, “I recommend making the font size 12” and “Just make sure these cites are MLA format”. I was also using incorrect citations which were brought to my attention through my peers’ revision. I have developed throughout the semester a different way to write from when I was in highschool. Although, still learning and practicing, the new methods still require some work. When I was in highschool we were taught to get everything down in writing and then we worked on the structure and everything else after. I have learned this is not the case, I can’t make my first draft super sloppy and not understandable, because then my final draft may still end up with errors or mistakes that are overlooked. Plus, my peers can’t provide feedback on something they do not understand. You can see all kinds of mistakes and errors when you look at my first week writing assignment, but from that assignment to the final draft of Essay 3, there has been a tremendous amount of effort put towards my citation and ensuring my small mistakes are taken care of, this has gotten to the point that less and less mistakes are being made in my writing.