Week 5 Discussion

When I worked on Essay 1, I realized I struggled a lot with balancing my analysis and just retelling the story. I kept catching myself summarizing instead of digging deeper into how things connected to my thesis, which made my argument feel weaker. Using pre-writing really helped me organize my ideas and get a draft going, but I think I got too stuck on following my outline exactly. Because of that, I ended up leaving out a few ideas that could have made my essay stronger. Another thing I noticed was that my thesis didn’t stay super clear throughout the essay. Sometimes, my points felt more like they were repeating details from the text instead of directly supporting my argument. What I learned is how important it is to stay focused on my main point and make sure everything I include connects back to it. It also showed me that being flexible with my outline can help me add better ideas as I go.

In writing Essay 1, I realized that my Essay 1 is kind of short. My response to the student sample was primarily based on what I observed, and I followed the assignment instructions closely to identify what the student sample essay  might have missed. However, I struggled to find additional points to elaborate on, which resulted in a less developed argument. I noticed that while I wrote extensively in the second paragraph, the first and third paragraphs were quite brief. This imbalance made my essay feel incomplete. I also overlooked the proper format for my Works Cited page; I didn’t include a hanging indentation, which I now understand is an important formatting detail. Through this experience, I plan to take more time during the drafting process to expand my ideas, and ensure each paragraph is fully developed for my future essay and add a hanging indentation for the works cited.  

I wanted to come back to this Discussion after seeing the importance of participating and reading my classmates comments. The overload of school work and job balance i mainly didn’t understand if we had to write about OUR EXPERIENCE  essay or STUDENT SAMPLE for this week.However, i did wanted to write about student sample. So here it goes. When i read “Beauty” as part of the title i was okay,maybe student is talking about the  beauty of the men that the villagers mainly the woman were admiring.I wanted to keep going with the title. As i kept reading i was getting supper confused and noting made sense.At the same time,I felt very glad about my self because maybe I didn’t do as well on my essay, I do have a hug gap of continues improvement but i knew not even half way that this student used some source of AI.The huge abuse on these technologies is concerning into a certain point. I will dedicate more time in my ENGLISH work and will start participating actively  in our discussion boards and will start enjoying this class with this community that we are building. I loved Jacob’s answer to discussion board on week 5.

I acknowledge that we have a lot of time to do our essays however, these topics are really hard for me to wright about. Sometimes I don’t know where even to start.I like reading but sometimes these types of literatures i  find very hard to understand and to write about. Towards the end i clearly understood and found a topic to write about for the essay 1 . I feel i need a more practice on my writing skills so i can keep improving. As one of my classmates wrote, practice makes perfect.When it comes in citations i find it very hard to move back and forth with two story’s . After my essay one is revised i will sit down and see where i need to improve.I will also, keep reading all the material that the professor provides. I need a lot of more practice and more reading and time management in this course.

In my opinion, writing Essay 1 was a little challenging. I was surprised because I usually do well with essays and writing overall. I’m used to creating my own outlines and brainstorming independently, but this time I followed your outline and your instructions for each paragraph. I enjoyed the challenge overall. I started by drafting and putting pieces together until I felt somewhat confident, even though I know this isn’t my best work. The hardest part for me was having my sources already cited. I like to research and think outside the box, but in this case, I couldn’t do that.

Currently as I haven’t done finishing the essay, I have left myself thinking too much about each sentence I’ve been writing. Because often times when you do, it takes away the time necessarily needed to build a functionally written essay about what you have written. I encountered problems critiquing the student’s AI-written essay about one thing only and nothing related to the other. One major error I did was that I tried to look back so many times about literary devices. Including are the outlines and such and not finding out what in the heck the student’s sample meant. Such words I intended to use were ‘overwritten, bland, robotic, nonsensical, and overgeneralistic. But as a student, I learn it is not to overexert yourself during the English course when you needed help and advice. For what it’s worth, I should’ve need to efficiently increase their time and resources into both evaluating the student sample according to the directions and the criteria on how he/she performed, and how well I done my assignment from the start, not only to reevaluate my structure, but to encourage my integrity with feedback from the people who wanted me to really succeed in this class. I have not mention that I sometimes worry about time as much as the writing assignment. I should next time only focus on the essay at hand, try to do it earlier next time, and keep doing work more efficiently so that this mistake wouldn’t be made for the next semester.

My first essay experience was challenging, as I made several errors and lacked depth and detail. My approach was too broad and did not align well with the assignment requirements. Balancing multiple classes, each demanding many assignments, has been difficult. I’ve realized that I haven’t devoted enough attention to my writing, which has affected the quality. However, I am confident in my ability to get better. Moving forward, I plan to focus more on ensuring my writing flows smoothly, with correct grammar and punctuation. Additionally, I will improve my citations and ensure they are meaningful to my writing. I will strive for better, As I have always been told “Practice makes Better.”

While I was writing essay 1, I realized that I had procrastinated which led to me to kind of rushing the essay. I also learned that I wasn’t fully prepared when it came to giving examples from the primary and secondary sources which was the story and the overview of that story. I realized that I was so focused on talking about how the student didn’t write her essay in the format of the outline and that they didn’t have a thesis, but instead had a theme, that I wasn’t talking about the two stories and the thesis of what it should’ve been. I was mainly talking about structure and formatting the whole essay and in the body paragrpahs which I could’ve avoided. When I got my feedback, I also realized that my body paragraphs could’ve been more organized and informative so that’s something that will make me change how I approach future writing assignments.

My experience in writing Essay 1 was a bit challenging. I learn and understands the outline which is requires in writing an essay more clearly. For example, the introduction requires the identification of the primary and secondary sources. I realizes the body was structure differently form how I would usually write it. I had a bit of a struggle grasping the structure of the body such as when and how to incorporate the sources and the quotes which was required. Writing a strong thesis statement was an issue as well. Also, citation is not one of my strengths. This is something I cannot grasp fully such as differentiating between MLA and APA. However, with the better understanding of the essay outline and how each part (the introduction, body and conclusion) is structured, I am hoping that I would improve in my essay writing. I would definitely incorporate what I leant in my essays going forward.  

My experience with essay one was that found the structure of the essay very well but once I started reading the essay I found myself struggling to connect the ideas of what the student was trying to portray because his ideas were kind of all over the place wasn’t very clear so for me it was a little challenging. My Approach to fix this in upcoming assignments is to take notes from the previous one and break down the text a little better and not try and rush through my writing process because sometimes I have many things to say but mix them all together so just making sure I get a better understanding of the whole passage and look deeper for quotes.

In the Essay 1 assignment, I struggled with balancing analysis and summary. I often ended up summarizing the text instead of focusing on deeper analysis and connecting it to my thesis, which weakened my argument. Pre-writing helped me organize my thoughts and create a draft, but I became too focused on following the outline perfectly. While the outline made it easier to structure my ideas, I was trying so hard to stick to it that I left out some important points I wanted to present. Additionally, I needed help to keep my thesis clear and consistent throughout the essay. Sometimes, I wasn’t sure if my points fully supported my main argument or simply restated information. However, I learned the value of making strong connections between my ideas and the main argument that I was presenting the importance of clarity in my writing, and the need to ensure that every point I make contributes to my overall message.

My experience with the Sample student essay was actually fun for me.  Sitting on the other side and being able to critique will give you so much insight on just how much work it is to detect what the student did wrong. It was a learning tool for me indeed. I realized just how important it is to be able to tell the difference between a good thesis or bad one, also acknowledging when the student takes a turn in the discussion. when it isn’t relevant anymore. It definitely makes me want to work harder on my next essays thesis and point in the body of the essay. One thing i have become familiar with is being able to point out what is wrong within the format. I’ve used the MLA format so much that i can just see errors if any just by glancing at the essay so that part was not challenging for me. I still feel like i need more work in the thesis part of the essays, and will work more on that. I want to be able to work more on being more specific and inserting quotes from the essay. I was able to print out the assignments and spread it out in front of me so i can be the best critique i can. I learned that following all the directions in the essay will assist you in getting to the flow of your essay.

My experience with our first essay was realizing I should trust my honest thoughts on whatever I’m reading. In the student’s essay, I saw more than a few things wrong at first but I started writing about how good it was. Then I edited what I wrote to somewhat reflect what I actually thought but I didn’t want to ridicule the work too harshly and ended up leaving out important mistakes, like how it was formatted, or not touching too much on the ones I did mention, like how all the quotes weren’t real. In the future I need to write my honest thoughts, whether they are good or bad, so my essay better answers the question/topic.

My experience with writing Essay #1 was fun but also stressful. Although I seemed to grasp the idea of what the assignment was, I struggled with critiquing the Sample Student’s essay . I think I struggled with this because at times I felt overwhelmed with having to compare the both stories, the sample student’s directions and essay as well as the directions on how I was supposed to critique. I learned what mistakes to not make on my future essays and that I should always follow the directions given.

While working on Essay 1, I came to understand just how important it is to be specific and clear in my analysis. The feedback I got pointed out that some of my wording was a bit vague, which made me think about how I express my ideas. One major lesson was the need to accurately represent my sources and really grasp the material I’m analyzing. For example, I accidentally attributed quotes to the wrong source, which taught me to be more diligent in cross-referencing my citations. I also realized that making statements without solid support weakens the overall argument. This experience will definitely influence how I tackle future writing assignments, encouraging me to plan more thoroughly, double-check my sources, and ensure my thesis is clearly linked to the rest of the essay. I’ll specifically focus on structuring my paragraphs for a smooth flow and making sure every point I make ties back to my main argument.

When I was writing essay 1, I learned a lot about crafting a better writing structure. I learned how right a strong thesis and how to have good transitions between paragraphs and how to integrate quotes better in my text. While reviewing the sample essay, I first focused on understanding the thesis made and that it should be more of an argument than announcement. It helped me write a better thesis. I also noticed that the sample essay transitions between the different paragraphs and ideas wasn’t as smooth to read so it made me give more attention on how I can connect my thoughts better. In order to do so I realized I need to have a better understanding of the text. I came back to read the story once again and had it with me throughout my writing. I also understood the importance of having a clear conclusion which is not only summarizing what I covered. It helped me to provide my reflection better on paper. Overall, this experience has improved how I approach writing assignments, focusing on clarity, coherence, and structure.    

I am proud of the essay that I submitted, because it paid off to take the risk of a very bold stance. Usually, I would’ve tried to be more positive in my review of the student essay; however, I took the chance to be critical and very outward with the mistakes I noticed. When I saw that the quotes used in the sample essay weren’t actually in the secondary source, I kept questioning myself if I had been mistaken. I ended up taking the gamble and making a statement about the quotes being incorrect, and it helped my essay in the end. Something I learned to improve on was to use quotations when referring to one word, rather than apostrophes. The main takeaway I got from the experience was that I should keep taking more risks with my writing. For every future writing assignment, I also know now how important it is to hit every single point from the rules/guidelines in my essay. Most importantly, I learned how to make a strong statement with specific research to back it up.

After finishing my first essay, I realized that writing an English essay is not easy, especially since it has to follow the MLA format exactly. As someone who started learning English later in life and still isn’t very good at it, this made the process even harder for me. I never really liked writing when I was young, and I didn’t have much interest in reading or writing. After completing this essay, I feel like I need to improve both my understanding of the writing requirements and my way of organizing ideas.

Doing Essay #1 I definitely will make sure I check and adjust my essay thoroughly before submission moving forward as well as making sure I read both sources to a tea. Unfortunately, after critiquing the student sample essay when I went to adjust my essay to double spacing I didnt realize that my laptop changed my font from the standard font and my paragraphs werent indented anymore, so while Im speaking on the student essay my essay was also grammatically incorrect. Nevertheless, I was so mad at myself because I felt like making sure the first sentence of your paragraphs are always indented is something you learn in elementary school. I definitely remember my teacher teaching us how indent with our index finger. The Professors feedback made me realize I have to take my time and proof read to make sure everything is to the standard MLA form. I wanted to be transparent with you guys because I took it pretty hard and was mad at myself for making a mistake like that, however I took the accountability and I will give it my all to not do that again.

Writing essay #1 was a struggle. I learned that I need to focus on ensuring that the content written is accurate and aligns with the assignment requirements. I can see that I misunderstood some elements such as the correct use of quotes and the central themes in the source material. Then I realized one issue was I used a quote that wasn’t present in the article. Moving forward, I will spend more time cross-referencing my sources to make sure I’m accurately representing the material. This experience will change how I approach my essay when writing by making me more careful with fact-checking and being sure that I understand the core themes before drafting my essay. For example, I will take things slowly by rereading my essay and sources after drafting to verify that all the quotes are used correctly and reflect the author’s point. I’ll also focus on a clear and precise thesis that fully satisfies the essay’s objectives avoiding irrelevant information

Reflecting on my experience writing Essay 1, I learned that following specific instructions was crucial. For example, I now understand that when the assignment asked for a thesis statement about an idea in the Rader article, it was necessary to focus solely on that specific requirement. This meant carefully analyzing the Rader article to identify a clear and focused idea to center the thesis statement around. Additionally, I realized the significance of providing in-text citations for all attributed quotes, as demonstrated in the student’s essay. Understanding the importance of properly attributing sources and using citations has not only improved the credibility of my work but has also helped me avoid unintentional plagiarism. These realizations have changed my approach to writing assignments. I now pay closer attention to the details outlined in the instructions to ensure that my work meets the specific criteria, and I am more diligent in incorporating proper citations to support my arguments and ideas.

In the first writing exercise for Essay 1, I learned that seeking external sources for help isn’t inherently wrong, but relying on them too heavily can be detrimental. This exercise challenged me to thoroughly read and re-read, alternating between my instructions and the sample student’s instructions, carefully taking it step by step. I knew going in that this would be a complex paper, which pushed me to slow down and focus. Normally, I tend to read something once and proceed based on my initial understanding, but this exercise forced me out of that comfort zone. I found myself repeatedly revisiting the student’s instructions, checking the requirements for primary and secondary quotes, comparing them to what was actually written, and noticing issues like the lack of MLA format. Additionally, the professor used this as an example to show the class how relying on AI for writing can lead to incomplete or flawed work, further emphasizing the importance of critical thinking and attention to detail when completing assignments.

Writing essay one was challenging for me because of the multi-layered aspect of this assignment. Even though this was an opinionative essay I struggled to write my essay following such specific guidelines. Due to these guidelines, for a while my paper felt “stiff”; it lacked flow and individualism. Another struggle I faced was critiquing the sample student essay.  The process felt harsh, but to follow the instructions given to me, I had to ensure the student properly adhered to the guidelines given. One lesson I’ve learnt is the importance of having your essay line up with your thesis statement. I realized that while writing my essay, all my main points hinged on what is written in my thesis. It is also important to ensure the body of your essay is not contradictory to the thesis statement. Due to this realization, I approached my thesis differently. I spent extra time to ensure that I had a thesis that effectively expressed my thoughts on the sample student essay.  

My experience with writing Essay Number One was an unexpected rollercoaster. I was so intent on ensuring everything was perfect. I wanted to include every quote seamlessly without skipping a point in the outline so badly that I forgot what the substance of the Sample Essay was really about. I had slipped up on something I should have noticed all because I wanted to make sure that I did the essay on time and that it made complete sense, grammatically. So I realized that sometimes I need to step back and take my time with my outline at first and not overlook the pre-writing assignments as just part of my homework but rather as a stepping stone for what my essay will consist of. This will change my approach to writing essays for the rest of the semester because for one, I haven’t written an essay in a long time and I feel a lot more comfortable now, and two, I think I finally got my rhythm of how ill be setting up my essays and to ensure I won’t procrastinate write a paragraph day by day so I can take time with my thoughts. I’m very excited about the next essay and I hope that my revision for the first essay is better than the last.

In writing the Essay # 1, I realized that I struggled with proper formatting and misused quotes, which weakened my argument. My citations were inconsistent, and I did not integrate quotes smoothly into the text. Also after reading Professor’s comment, I realized that I used too much of the abstract language which clouded my message, making it harder to communicate clearly. These mistakes obstructed the overall flow and clarity of my essay. Moving forward, I plan to focus on improving my formatting by closely following MLA guideline. Additionally, I will work on selecting more relevant quotes and include them naturally, ensuring they support my points effectively.