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Cindy Vargas

Professor Ditch

English 115

9 December 2019

Improvement as a Writer

The transition from high school to college is something many new college students

struggle with. You go from writing two pages essays to five and some students struggle with this.

In high school I considered myself an average writer. My essays were decent, but they weren’t

exceptional. I knew my writing needed improvement. When I began college and the essays

began, I struggled with writing the essays. When we did both project essay and project text, I still

felt that they were average essays, but my writing has gotten better. These essays show that my

writing has improved and that I am learning from my mistakes.

When we started the project space essay, I understood the prompt and understood what I

had to do. The proposal helped so much in putting together the essay. Once I received my essay

back and saw my grade and the comments, I knew some things that I needed to improve. I

noticed that on my essay, “Internal and External. Inside You and Around you.” I was struggling

with writing in different tenses and someone pointed out to me that I do this frequently in my

writing and I have to keep it in present tense. In my revised essay of “Internal and External.

Inside You and Around you” you can see that I used present tense. This was not the only thing I

improved on. In this essay I struggled with my transitions from one paragraph to another. I have

always struggled with transitions because I never knew how to start, or I felt that it did not fit or

make any sense. This is why you can see that I really did not have transitions in my unrevised

essay, I just went straight to talking about the articles. My essay sounded like it jumped from one
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article to another without the transition and I feel that this is what cost me points. I went to a

tutor from the LRC and they explained that many students struggle with this but the one thing

you really need to do is start with a topic sentence that leads into the purpose of the paragraph. In

my revised essay I provided transitions in all my paragraphs and made sure I made the essay

flow properly. This shows how I improved my writing in project space and used this essay to

help me in project text.

Now when we began working on project text, I did not understand the prompt, but I

analyzed it and asked my peers for help. After I understood what the essay had to argue I began

writing. While I was writing this essay, I kept in mind what I did not do in my other essay that I

need to do here to help improve it. In my essay, “The Effects of Transformation” my professor

pointed out that I had many organizational issues, meaning that my essay was not organized and

jumped from one point to another. I improved this essay by fixing these issues and I did this by

color coding the events I mention in me essay from before, during and after the attack of pearl

harbor. In my revised essay you can see that the paragraphs are organized, and my points

transition smoothly, and I do not jump from the future back to the past. This essay just shows

how I am slowly improving in my writing.

Writing essays in college was different than writing them in high school. Although I did

have errors on my essays, they show my improvement as a writer. I have learned many things

that will help me to continue to improve my work and I am still determined to be a better writer.

These essays challenged my writing and made me open my eyes to what I need to work on.

There is always room for improvement and me now I know what sources I have available to me.

Writing has never been a strong suit of mine and I knew that this was not going to be easy, but I

knew that I was going to learn from my mistakes, and these will help in the long run.
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Works Cited

Vargas, Cindy. Unrevised Internal and External. Inside You and Around you. 24 Sept. 2019.

California State University of Northridge.

Vargas, Cindy. Revised Internal and External. Inside You and Around you. 24 Sept. 2019.

California State University of Northridge.

Vargas, Cindy. Unrevised The Effects of Transformation. 22 Oct. 2019. California State

University of Northridge.

Vargas, Cindy. Unrevised Internal and External. Inside You and Around you. 22 Oct. 2019.

California State University of Northridge.