Reflection on my Writing

After re-reading the first blog I had written, Bass, Treble, Jess, an introduction of myself as a writer,  a sense of pride overcomes me when I see how much Engl 105 has helped me grow as a writer.  My first blog was all about the introduction of myself and some personal facts as well as the introduction of my topic I would continue writing blogs about and that is the effects of music on the human emotions.  This blog was the easiest to write of the five because since I was only introducing myself and my topic, it was easily relatable to my audience, my fellow classmates.  I briefly introduced bands in my blog that most students my age and older would be familiar with, or at least heard of such as The Doors, The Beatles, and the Grateful Dead. My thesis statement is as follows,  “The way music makes you feel, emotionally and scientifically, is my main point in my blogs I will be posting”.  I believe after looking back on it, that it is adequate, but not great.  It was easy to point out in the blog, although it was a little farther in the reading than most thesis statements.  On the positive side, all three parts, context, subject, and claim, are mentioned, but the claim could be more specific.  In this particular blog, I had shown my ability to analyze through personal experiences.  For about six or seven lines, I give either a fact or a quote, but the next fourteen lines are spent about my discussing of personal experiences and personal opinions about the previous fact quoted.  In the beginning of the semester, I found it much harder to analyze my thoughts in my paper adjacent to another writer’s works, but I am proud to say I feel like it has gotten much easier.

I have never been more proud to turn in a paper than how I felt when I turned my research paper in, Making Our World A Little Greener.  I put a lot of work and effort into trying to persuade my audience that it would be a smart choice for the United States to legalize the sale and recreational use of marijuana.  To have college students as an audience is a great benefit because college students today are our congressmen of tomorrow.  As the generations change, so does the public’s opinion.   My thesis statement, “Legalizing marijuana across the United States would greatly benefit the country as a whole by giving adults a choice, reducing the pain and stress of our citizens, saving law enforcement costs annually, and gaining tax revenue from legal sales” is, I believe, to be very well definied.  It is specific, and contains an effective context, subject, and claim.  I felt that I was finally able to grasp the concept of analyzing another writer’s work with this paper.  By reading their opinions and facts, it was easier to introduce their beliefs with my opinion, either agreeing or refuting, in an organized way.  Almost every paragraph of my research paper was briefly introducing facts and then my opinion following after.

When you compare the first thing I ever wrote in this class, Bass, Treble, Jess, and my most final work, my research paper, it looks like two different writers are being compared.  I have grown and gotten so much better with analyzing and thesis statements.  My writing seems more organized and audience appropriate in my paper than in my blog.  My biggest struggle that I have overcome with writing is definitely the analyzing part and figuring out what is important and credible in a paper and what is not.  In my blog, there was much use of “I” and some run on sentences with irrelevant information.  In Making The World A Little Greener, there are many facts and statistics to show the reader that, as a writer, I have researched enough on this topic to make me credible.  One statistic used to show this is that “37% of U.S residents aged 12 and older and 48% of high school seniors claim to have used marijuana at least once in their lifetime, and 22% of high school seniors claim to have used the drug in the past month (National Drug Intelligence Center (2006).”  As a writer, I have strengthened my ability to write more effectively, analyze better, and capture my audience’s attention for longer.  The paper I am most proud of, Making Our World A Little Greener, is my evidence that I have become a better writer.  Instead of writing about personal experiences that may or may not be relevant to my topic, I have finally figured out how to research a topic and weave their ideas with mine.