21 November 2019

Mrs. Davis
Northern Oklahoma College
English Department
615 N Monroe St
Stillwater, OK 74076
Dear Mrs. Davis,
I have collected four pieces of my writing over the last six years. I choose these four pieces to
reflect my writing for those certain time periods and how they evolved or changed over time. I
also chose these pieces to reflect my organization and willingness to keep focused. These pieces
also give a background of who I am not only as a writer but as a person.
My first piece of writing is a paper from my Junior year in high school. The paper was
persuasive essay assignment, “Government Pro”, with forced topics and viewpoints. I chose this
piece to showcase because, it showcases my ability to do my best to write on any subject. My
organizational skills are lacking in this essay are minimal but show basic structure to just follow
my thesis without transitions. My second piece of writing is research paper topic from my life
development class my freshman year called, “BPA and Your Child’s Lifespan”. This paper was
my first more extensive essay I wrote and also the first college level MLA paper I wrote. “BPA
and Your Child’s Lifespan” showcases my organization again and my ability to focus heavily on
a specific topic. The paper shows work citation flaws that will later be corrected or my writing
career. My third piece of writing, “Freakanomics Analysis of Incentives”, is a piece I wrote in
my third year of college and shows better formatting of citations and full book citations however,
shows quite a couple grammar and paragraph formatting issues. This showcases my ability to
change my writing style over time even though my grammar faltered this time. My final piece is
“Viral Encephalitis”. This piece I wrote this year and showcases organization, formatting
properly, and grammar checks. This piece transitions properly throughout the work from subject
to subject, citation and paragraph formatting are in place properly, and has better spelling and
grammar than my previous entries. This also gives a light into my life and my family giving
more detail of who I am and my family situation.
Over my collegiate time my writing has improved significantly and more precisely in your class.
My writing, oral, and reading skills are my least refined skills of all. Literacy has never been my
strong suit though I make small incremental steps to improve these skills which can be shown in
my papers from high school to now. Literacy isn’t a skill like math, science or even history
where you can recognize patterns or formulas to use and have pre-determined outcomes outside
of the high level or theory courses in these particular skills. Literacy is on your own and your
ability to conform to anything thrown at you. Personally as my reading levels have evolved from
reading pieces for evaluation and analysis has changed my writing substantially. As my literacy
in reading expanded this allowed me to reread my papers before submission and catch mistakes
even though I’m still not perfect yet there are still small incremental steps over time.

My writing process tool would be my draft analysis. My writing process does not focus much on
the outline but focuses more on my train of thought and then reevaluation. I struggle to start
papers and find good opening statements but once it’s started my mind is an avalanche and only
gets better and more thought-out until I reach the bottom. I do have grammar, spelling, and even
lack of focus from these moments in my writing but it’s my best way to write as it lets my hands
do the work and my brain can correct any mistakes after. It serves a nice flow in my papers most
of the time and transitioning comes easier. In a way my drafts are my outline just with extra
steps. My writing process changed over years to this type of writing. My process before was
brute forcing papers I didn’t think about too much and never got a decent flow. I’ve got more
comfortable with my writing technique and just let my sentences spill onto the paper or
document and fix mistakes after.
My weaknesses are still as stated before my lack or inability to find a good starter to my papers. I
can spend hours thinking of just the first sentence and what’s a good attention grabber and
what’s a good way to transition into my thesis. Another weakness is still my literacy level. My
ability to check for grammar and spelling falters so I have to have my roommate double check
my writing from time to time to see if I miss anything important. My strength is definitely my
flow and organization skills. I write in patterns and can explode with vast information into my
writing in short periods of time without thinking too much when I get on a roll. My research
skills are definitely a benefit as well coming from a department and major that requires a lot of
research papers. My research skills help find information on a subject to write about or just
finding information to help my literacy skills or other skills in my day to life to benefit myself.
An ability to find and peer check resources to find the best options for not only me but for others
as well.
What’s next is definitely multiple research papers in my future and plenty of analysis papers. I
need to address my literacy skills more especially in my grammar and spelling. I’m sure with
more practice I can get better with learning my own “formulas” for writing and correct my
common mistakes I make. I feel I’m prepared for my own writing future and if I’m not, I’m at
least prepared to learn from my mistakes and make the corrections I need to.
In conclusion, this class has helped my literacy skills substantially but also taught me more than
just to improve this skill. It’s taught me to look at my writing process as a whole and
development. This class has also showed me literacy subset of skills I still lack in but also helped
me identify my strengths. This class has also shown that not every paper has to be a serious
analytical or research paper with only reciting something you read. Papers can be about so many
other topics from letters to officials to just papers from your own perspective. I do hope my time
in actuary and finance allows me to see this more often and realize there’s more than just my
business and math papers. I will forever try to improve my literacy skills and hope my writing
inspires someone later on in my life to improve on their own skills as well.
Sincerely,

Ethan Jaggars