Final Reflection

Dear Joyce King,

For my final project I decided to edit my very first writing project and my latest one.

Picking these two was actually a bit difficult for me because I was happy with all of my writing

projects. Yes, there were portions of each writing project that I was not quite happy with, but I

was still happy with the final outcome. In order to decide which of the 3 writing projects I would

choose to rewrite, I decided to go with the ones with the most comments and the one that I was

least happy with.

The first writing project and the second writing project were both tied with the most

comments. In order to choose between the two I decided to go with the one with the most

potential for fixing. Looking at my writing project 1, I saw that there were areas that I could

reword and make better. The same could be said about writing project 2, but the main difference

here is that I did not care for that writing project.

I do enjoy art, specifically digital art, but I was pushed into writing about computer

generative art instead of the kind of art I was thinking of, which was drawing with a tablet on a

computer program. The fact that I had to base everything on other people’s research made that

writing project even less enjoyable. Writing project 1, however, was something I was excited to

work on. Being able to talk in depth about slasher movies and provide my own analysis about

them was something I loved to do, so the paper ended up feeling more like a monologue rather

than an essay.

In my first writing project, I noted that there were a few spelling errors and structural

changes that I felt could have been made, so I fixed those up. The large significant changes were

then tackled, the first being the opening paragraph. I felt as though it was still a good idea to
open with a story, but that it needed to be enhanced. I added foreshadowing about points that I

was going to use later on in the essay and then came up with a thesis statement for my entire

essay. When I turned in the original essay, I had completely forgotten to include one, mainly

because I felt as though another sentence of mine was the thesis but upon a second reading I saw

that it was more of a supporting sentence than a thesis statement.

Another significant change I made to the essay was that I added an example of a poster

that did not incorporate a sharp object in its design and thus ended up suffering because of it. I

did this because when I discussed other features of the slasher movie poster genre I had included

examples of posters that broke those specific features.

Throughout the rest of the essay I just included sentences that I thought would expand

upon my original ideas even further. For example, I added a sentence that elaborate on the usage

of obscure faces in the “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” poster because I felt as though it wasn’t

strong enough on its own. As pointed out in my feedback, it was not quite clear what about the

obscure face made the audience feel terrified. So I combined the sharp object characteristic of a

poster and the obscure face in order to show why those two mixed together would make for a

scary poster.

For the other writing project that I chose, I went with my third writing project; more

specifically the reflection letter. When I wrote the reflection, I was doing it with minimal effort. I

was so excited to go home that I did not put in the most effort that I could. The other reason why

I chose to edit the reflection letter rather than the actual writing project because my writing

project took a lot of effort to create and I did not want to have to rewrite and create more coding

in order to fix what was suggested.

 When I re-read my reflection I noted the clunkiness of a few paragraphs. My opening

paragraph seemed extremely weak and not at all engaging. My original introduction starts off

straight away with introducing my translation and why I decided to go with it. The final sentence

off the paragraph also was just completely awkward as it felt as though it was just crammed into

it. In my update paragraph I added an explanation as to why I care about the topic of the article I

chose. I felt as though if I made my interest more personal, it would make my reflection much

more engaging . I included the names of different species of carnivorous plants to give the

readers more of a visual understanding of what I will be talking about in the essay .

The second significant change I made to my article was that I completely rewrote my

paragraph about the struggles that I faced when I formatted by essay. The main reason for this is

because my original paragraph was more superficial and didn’t fully touch upon the struggles

that I faced while making the game. In my paragraph, I only named dropped the game engine

that I wanted to emulate in my translation, but I did not go into detail as to what it would add to

the game itself . So in my updated paragraph I elaborated as to why I wanted to try to and create

a similar battlesystem to undertale and what it would add to my game.

In my final significant change to my reflection, I added an entire paragraph that focused

on a different struggle that I faced in my translation which was my effort to conserve the tone of

the article in my translation. As you had pointed out, my reflection focused more on my choices

rather than my struggles, soI figured that this was a necessary paragraph to add to my reflection.

Aside from my experience with this final project, I do have some thoughts of my progress

throughout the entire quarter. I don’t think I’ll enjoy writing as much as an English major. But I
have grown an appreciation for it. Thanks to writing 2, I’ve learned my weaknesses as an author

and can now work on them.

From writing project 1 I learned alot about genres. This was extremely helpful to me

because it taught me how to simplify things that I read and figure out how they were constructed.

Doing this makes it easier for me to write an essay in the way a class would want me to. For

example: If I took a class in Psychology and had to write a paper talking about people’s decision

making process, I would be able to read an article on the subject then format my essay in a

similar fashion.

I think the aspect that I have the most difficulty with, and probably will be constantly

working on, is making sure that everything I write makes sense. When writing, I have a bad habit

of making a lot of typos and missing words. The thing is that when I’m writing I feel as though I

wrote down everything I was thinking. Even when I’m proofreading, I miss things that other

people would be able to catch. The only way to effectively solve this is have other people read it.

Something classroom specific I struggled with, however, was the concept of cohesion. I write

my papers in a way that I feel flows perfectly. However people have pointed out that it

sometimes appears clunky. To fix this I just need to read aloud my paper and see if anything

sounds weird.

Overall, I would say that I feel as though I definitely improved my first writing project

and the reflection for my third one. I am happy with the progress that my writing has made

throughout the quarter. I was even able to apply things that I learned in this class to another class

that I was taking which was Art1A. Even if I don't receive the best grade for this final, I am

happy with where I have ended up in my process of becoming a better academic writer.