Written Words and Wishful Thinking

At the beginning of the year, I referred to my writing as “organized chaos.” Although I love showing off my eccentric side, I wanted my writing to sound less chaotic and more academic. However, I have always associated academic writing with being boring. Thankfully the blog format has helped me find duality and has turned me into a creative academic writer. Ironically, in my first weekly writing, I said I was “concerned about the blog format,” given that it has now become one of my favorite parts of this course. I also want to continue blogging after this class ends because it is a great way to practice writing and provides an outlet for my creativity. Overall I am pleased with the results of the goals I set for myself. One of the most important things to me was building solid claims, and after Keanna’s Thesis presentation, I had a firmer handle on formatting them. I have solid theses for all three of my final papers. Especially the research paper for this class. It sounded daunting initially, but I realized its manageability after my improvements this year. Although I still have trouble interweaving sources, using a blog that allows hyperlinks made it much easier to integrate my sources without spending too much time trying to find the perfect way to include them. Without the concern of finding the perfect way to include a source, I could focus more on the quality of my writing and finding my voice. I want people to tell my writing apart from others and create a tone that people find exciting yet comforting, like reading a good book by a fire.

Although I am impressed with my growth as a writer, there are still things I look forward to improving next semester in my two writing intensives. (Yes, I am taking both of them at the same time. No, I don’t know what I was thinking.) First of all, my analytical writing can definitely be improved. I identify as a creative writer and experienced challenges with more evidence-based writing this year. Although learning the 5 analytical steps did greatly help, I want to get better at pulling material from my sources that do the best job of proving my claim. I also want to work harder at suspending judgment when reading a source because I let my opinions take over before I genuinely grasp the piece. I will work to achieve this goal by finding articles from academic sources that way, I can’t use the website to judge an article’s stance on an issue. Finally, I want to get better at utilizing the library. I come up with exciting theses. However, this can lead to difficulty when searching for sources. Throughout this semester, I was reminded of how incredible our library is. I got to look at antique books in my Shakespeare class and World War II letters from students and alum in FYS. Next semester I will ask the library for help with research-based writing because there is no shame in asking for help. I am so thankful for my growth this semester, and I can’t wait to see the writer I will become next semester.