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This is Only the End of the Beginning By: Jalyn Anderson

When it comes to anything you do in life, there are certain things you have to abide by in order to be successful. In this writing class, I failed to do this on our first project with the common reading. One of the main things in the paper’s requirements was meeting the word count of a thousand words, and I didn’t do that. In order to be successful, one has to pay attention to what they are doing and if they are doing it correctly. When I came to the realization that I had only provided seven hundred of the required word count, I was devastated. I instantly reached out and went to my teacher for assistance. In the end, I did not get the finest grade, nor anywhere near the grade I would have liked to have. One could question how this mishap stuck out to me in terms of my many developments throughout the semester. While this was not a direct problem with my writing itself, it caused a negative impact as a whole with the end result. No matter how good my writing was, the value was diminished by my failure to do what was needed. As a result, I never made this mistake in my future projects and papers. Which overall is a fantastic accomplishment and improvement to make.

When it comes to my papers, I tend to rely on my ideas and thoughts. While these things are essential to incorporate into a paper, that is not all they should be. One’s reflection of the information they are comprehending is nothing without textual evidence to back it up. This was something that was hard for me to put into my writing because my teachers didn’t strongly require it from me in my past years of writing. In my project two-unit reflection, I said, “Instead of just referring to my own ideas, I had to go outside my comfort zone and actually pull information from my Op-Doc and incorporate it into my paper.” This shows that I was aware of what I needed to do; I just had trouble with the execution. In the reflection, I also noted that I would first have to provide information to show where my thoughts were stimulated in order to get my concepts and ideas across effectively. After reaching out and allowing someone else to show me what I was missing so that they could lead me down the right path, I came to this realization. In the end, while this is something I am still working on, I am constantly getting better, and that is all that matters.

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think in the beginning, while working on my common reading project; I was afraid to ask for help. This feeling stemmed from not being able to talk to my teachers in person. Only because I was concerned about the reaction, I would receive when asking for help from my teachers. I did not personally know who they were, so there was a risk that they would reject or avoid helping me. Later on, I realized that this was not the case at all. In fact, by reaching out to my teachers, I would actually benefit from doing so. Since I sought out my peers and teachers to give me advice about my papers, it allowed me to fix mistakes, and weak points that I didn’t even know were in my writing. This could be seen in my Op-Doc, where I failed to provide visuals and information from the source itself to help give the readers a better understanding. It was because I reached out to my teacher that I discovered that this was an issue within my paper. When going back to my first project, if I had asked and reached out for assistance, the small mistakes made that I was not aware of at the time could have easily been avoided. In hindsight, it is better to do something later than expected as opposed to not doing it at all. While it took me some time to get over my worries and get help, it paid off in the end.

When you want to get something done effectively, you have to make a plan in order to get it done in a structured and efficient way. That is something I failed to do in some of the papers I wrote. Specifically, with the argument workbook, I don’t think I prioritized it as much as I should have. This workbook was a perfect opportunity to map out a plan for my argumentative paper, but I did not wholly utilize it. After realizing that I didn’t, I tried to avoid doing so in the future, which I did. From that point on, I would get my ideas and desired points together so that I would not just be throwing something together. While it was unfortunate that I didn’t completely do so with my argumentative paper, it was okay. The fact that I learned from that mistake and did my best to improve from that point on showed growth. Besides, while I don’t believe this was the most prominent aspect of my development, I still think it was somewhat important. In the end, the little things can add up and therefore have a significant impact. This also shows that one has to pay attention to every aspect of something to learn and get the most out of it.

Throughout this, it is clear to see that I made improvements throughout my writing journey this semester. One can especially see this with the grades that I made. On our first project with What the Eyes, I made a sixty-eight, and now with my last two grades, I had the same average of eighty-three. That is a drastic change and a tremendous improvement that was made. While that was a great step in progressing, I must keep pushing to do better and be better. The work and progress I have now made means almost nothing if I stop trying to do even better. With my Op-Doc analysis and my argumentative paper, there was no improvement in terms of the grade I made. While that is not necessarily bad, it just shows that my work is not over yet, and I need to continue to strive for the improvement I so badly want. No matter how big or small that may be, something is better than nothing. It just shows one that they are moving forward instead of backward or, in my case, standing still. After being encouraged to do better, I plan to take what I learned and use it in my work. I am going to do this as I continue to learn more and grow as a writer. As I work through this process, I am going to remember that most good writing begins with a horrible first attempt, but you have to start somewhere!