As a freshman student in City College of New York, it is hard to transition from a high school environment to a college environment. In high school, the workload was manageable,  however, when I came to college, there are constantly essays being written every week. Writing papers was always a flaw of mine. I can spend hours and days trying to perfect a paper and at the end of the day, I was not able to complete as much as I intended to. The writing process was always long for me, which is one reason why I didn’t enjoy writing. When receiving my feedback from a peer or my professor, they would always point out that my ideas were too vague. They explained that I should elaborate more on my ideas. However, as I was taking the FIQWS Composition class, I was able to slowly improve my writing skills from utilizing different writing techniques, the six rhetorical situations, and the course learning outcomes.  

The objective of this class is to discover, analyze, develop and address our viewpoints using different writing techniques. At the beginning of the semester, I came in with a dislike feeling towards writing. However, as the semester progressed, my knowledge in writing expanded and my attitude towards writing has begun to change. In class, we learned the effectiveness of having the six rhetorical situations in our writing. As I was writing my essays, I noticed that I started incorporating more rhetorical situations, for example, stance and exigence. While conducting research I kept in mind about the two situations which affected my viewpoints and led me to have different perspectives being incorporated into my essay.

The first essay that we wrote in class was the Lifeview/Workview essay. In this essay, we wrote about our viewpoints on how we perceive work and life. During the drafting process, I was able to incorporate different views, while getting inspiration from TED talks. From the TED talks, I incorporated the main concepts which changed my perception of how the society revolves around survival and death. However, when I received the feedback from my peers and professor, they told me to make it more personal instead of using conceptual thoughts (peer review).Because of my personality, I don’t like expressing my feelings; which were one of the reasons why I was unable to effectively get my viewpoints into my essay. After encountering the Lifeview/Workview essay, with constructive criticism, I was able to enhance my writing by incorporating the rhetorical situations. Such as purpose, stance, and exigence in my writing, the readers were able to become more engaged. It became something that they can relate to.

Another essay that we wrote was the Research Critical Analysis paper. For this essay, we incorporated the process of how we effectively designed our major and careers using different methods. Based on my past experience with the Lifeview/Workview essay, I was able to learn from my mistakes and incorporate the rhetorical situations in my Research Critical Analysis paper. While writing this paper I was able to become more personal by including how I felt and the reasons why I felt that way. However, a problem that I encountered while writing this essay was the requirements which were similar to the exploratory essay. Having similar requirements made it arduous not to become tedious with specific details.

When I was younger, I was always told that the drafting and revision process was always an important step as a writer. The drafting process was always a quick walk through and never went in depth on the process. The revision process was difficult for me because I did not receive enough constructive criticism to improve my essay. I viewed it as a tedious task because it always took a great amount of time to perfect. However, my views began to change when after encountering TED talk “The Magic of Revision”. I was able to understand why the drafting and revision process took time to perfect. This is because we want to make sure that our ideas are properly executed so that the readers can comprehend; which brings us back to the importance of rhetorical situations.

Throughout the semester we had six writing assignments. Each assignment had its own way of helping me grow as a writer. I believe that “Not Everything is About Being Right” was one of the essays where I was able to fully grasp the requirements. This is because I was able to connect to the TED talk “Being Wrong”. I understood what she stated which allowed me to point out and summarize what was the purpose of the talk. The ideas throughout the talk were relatable which gave me epiphanies that allow me to express my experience effectually.

            As I learned many things, one thing that I learned but is still not on par with is the library’s database. Recently, having the exposure with this database, the resources for my paper were limited. This affected the impact of my paper because including educational research can enhance my perspective in writing. While integrating different resources with another person’s viewpoint and/or experience, we need to cite them for credibility to avoid plagiarism.

As writing is still a big flaw of mine, my views of writing have changed over the course of the semester. Through the assignments, I was able to improve my writing with a process. Although the process may take longer, it is beneficial to have drafting, collaborating, revising, and editing process. With the constructive criticism from my peers or professor, I was able to incorporate their opinions on what was needed in my essay. As my educational journey continues I may still despise writing papers, but I still hope to improve in my writing.

If you want to continue knowing about my journey as a writer for this course click any of the tabs above.