Brianna Douglas 

Eng160  

Instructor Camilleri 

December 3, 2021 

 My Writing Journey  

     Before this course I knew my writing was decent and I wanted to expand on it and make it better. Instructor Camilleri gave us grammar resources and helped us fix and adjust our grammar so that way we made sense. I found it helpful too that we even spent some time in class doing it. I already liked to write on my own but being that this course was able to show me that even for my schoolwork I could use my own personality in my writing style instead of the robotic “normal” writing style taught in schools I felt better about the work I was able to turn in. Being able to process on my own and then work in groups was able to help me perfect my writing, to enhance it and expand on my work. My writing process itself hasn’t changed that much but definitely my mindset towards my school writing assignments has been able to change. My work in this class is surrounded by ideas of exploring my writing style and how things have personally affected me. This is whether it was a commercial, people surrounding me, and the impact on the society I live in. My organization in my writing by including an introduction where I may give some context behind the scenes, then I go into what the topic is, continue on to state a claim or hint towards the bigger picture, then I start with getting in any claims I may have about the topic and finally any last comments or thoughts about it to wrap it up. Personally I feel as though I should go back and expand my vocabulary and so I use very basic elementary school vocabulary in most of my works. I also just use MLA citation which I’ve been using.  

     I still have some things I know I need improvement on things like grammar still, but I feel as though my revision process has been better after getting feedback even if I don’t implement it all but just speaking to the people giving it to me and building off ideas from each other and talking about my work more I think has helped my writing process. Before this class I used to just get feedback and use whatever I wanted to use but to be able to have a conversation about it has made me grow as a writer. I never used TurnItIn before this year, but I found it interesting, I found out that my name as a header was so common that it went to relate to others work but of course I wasn’t committing any plagiarism. I also liked the idea of having a Hawk site as I also never used one before but found it interesting as it was a nice place that was special to our writing.  

     The research essay I submitted to the hawk site was quite some work. I found the topic so interesting that I realized that I almost didn’t have enough time to write my paper. I kept looking up sources and researching over writing it but given that I decided to start with taking notes on main points rather than just reading or watching my sources, I was able to get it done in time and use most of what I researched in my paper. In writing this paper I thought of writing and rhetoric and how what everyone was saying or writing all had a purpose and even though I didn’t really include that in my paper I didn’t realize this till after I was done with the paper. I even realized that I had a motive behind not writing the author’s purposes and that was because of me trying to convince my audience of my own preference and opinion. I was able to think more outside the box than I previously had, able to think without criticism of the way I was thinking because the way I was thinking was perfectly fine. Writing about the research essay reminds me of when I first started writing here at New Paltz in my literacy narrative. In my literacy narrative I had to constantly think about getting my message across and how to get from one point to another in my writing and constantly think of not only the audience but the purpose of my writing as I had to make sure that what I was writing was going to make sense for the message I was trying to pursue. Out of the two I believe my research essay was a better piece of writing in terms of the work and research being there, but I feel as though I wasn’t fully authentic as I could’ve been with my material. To revise my work again, I would try to make sure the works had more of my personality in them, to make them more personalized, getting away more from the standard writing I was taught and got comfortable with. I would also try to expand my vocabulary in them, make me sound more intellectual. I would finally try to reread them and make sure everything on the paper has a purpose and not just put it there, make sure my writing flows.  

     I enjoyed reading different forms of writing in the class but specifically I like the book Let’s Talk because of how informational it was. The book wasn’t that big, so it was approachable and easy to grasp the information being said. The book was related to what we were learning and made examples that helped me think more in depth about the class while   being able to relate to some of the experiences in the book. This book was able to help me even in my Literacy Narrative assignment which I was able to find helpful to see my base level of writing skills and really help me figure out where to start. Using the book and instructor Camilleri’s instruction, I was able to evolve my writing for my round of revisions. 

     Personally I am ready to move onto Writing and Rhetoric. I know I am able to use rhetoric now in my work and my writing is capable of doing better and improving along the way. Writing and Rhetoric in the new semester will encourage me to do these things, pushing me to do better. After this semester I feel as though argumentative writing for me would be a good fit as I can use my newfound knowledge of rhetoric and my researching capabilities to get my point across in an academic way plus, I am able to cite the way I need to for the next course. This class has given me all the tools needed to continue to the next course. 

 

Works Cited  

Douglas, Brianna N. Influencers vs. TV Celebrities in Social Media. 26 Oct. 2021, https://hawksites.newpaltz.edu/douglasbriannaeng160/assignment-2-final/.  

Douglas, Brianna N. My Literary Narrative. 21 Sept. 2021, https://hawksites.newpaltz.edu/douglasbriannaeng160/assignment-i-final/. 

Lunsford, Andrea A. Let’s Talk: A Pocket Rhetoric. W. W. Norton & Company, 2021.