Reflective Essay
I always felt I had the skill to write courtesy of my high school writing grades and coming to college I was confident the trend will continue for sure. I had no idea what was in store for me as the first grade I received totally shocked me and introduced me to college writing. I used to avoid listening to high school English teacher when they mentioned the high level of writing expected in college and now I was paying for it. I found out from my first few papers that my school did not have the right standards and classes for writing papers and I needed to solve this issue to ensure my grades stay intact. Looking back I can say I have learned a lot from my college classes this semester and I understand the grades I received at start were justified as I needed to raise the bar as this was college not a high school class. For getting those A grades the bar was set high and I need to learn and adapt to the higher standards.
In this semester through my coursework, I learned about English and how to write papers.
I came from high school where we did not have great classes to help our writing skills. I can say now after the end of semester that I have developed better paper writing skills and it is all thanks to my college classes. The variation of assignments given to me helped me to better my researching methods and getting n touch with my problem areas. In this semester I have progressed in writing essays, discussing papers with my classmates, taking care of corrections, blogging and above all accepting criticism for my mistakes. It took me some time to grasp the basics but I did manage to make most of my concept clear and take strides ahead.
All through the course I used by thinking attribute to the fullest, but by gaining better understanding my ability critically analyze topics has developed. I used to focus on the possible meanings and the background of the sources but now I have started to analyze the content by break it into pieces and getting the deeper meaning and knowledge on my papers. For every coursework given I have dig deeper to get the best possible knowledge and get closer to the issue. Another thing I would like to point out from by coursework is by reading many novels; I have learned better understanding of writing styles and differences between them. Every novel I have gazed through has been marked with my pen, as I have actively pointed out my insights on most pages of them.
Major Assignment
My assignment on the topic “College Athletes Should Be Paid” was the most significant topic which helped me to improve my writing skills and build my confidence as a better researcher for the information I need. It also introduced me to how to critically analyze the web articles, blogs, new reports, novels and other sources and add value to my papers. When I was given this topic for coursework I was excited as sports have always been my interest are and I personally believe that college athletes should be paid. Though the topic was something I was keen to work on, the writing and research was another case as I came from school where we did not have great writing classes.
Initially I found this assignment quite difficult as I was unclear where to start and how to give it a proper beginning. I went through the sample shared to us on writing and asked my classmates to help me get the paper started. The best advice I got was to start writing the paper by diving it into parts and complete the as a step-step writing process. After that it turned out to be cakewalk as most of the data was available at online sources and through each source used I was able to create different topics which helped me in finishing the paper with meaningful information. Starting from a rough draft and finalizing the final took its time as many new and unplanned information was added while writing the paper. The difficulty which was posed in expanding the essay was solved by continuous research for similar work to get better idea of different forms of writing. It was struggle for me to work on this assignment but I emerged from this assignment as a better writer, researcher, reader and a student with much critical analyzing skills.
Relation between outcome and assignment
As soon I got the assignment I knew I would struggle due to my inabilities and no prior knowledge of writing a proper college paper. From the start, despite being a sports enthusiast I found it difficult to start the basic narration and started to develop different narrations in draft to give the paper best meaning. After giving up on a narrative I started to search for content on different sources which could contribute to my assignment and I found similar information from different sources which helped me in finishing my narrative and finally start my paper.
The biggest difficulty I found in this paper was to expand my narrative into a full length paper and to solve this decided to divide the paper into different parts and complete one a time. Collection of information was though easy but careful analysis of choosing the correct information took its time. I wanted to ensure throughout my paper I never drifted off topic or made my assignment full of errors. With information and statistics available at many sources I found it easy to prove my point in the paper with detailed college statistics, revenue records, player testimonies and interviews from people who were directly involved in the issue of paying college football athletes who help the NCAA make billions every year. From here I learned to develop better writing skills which have continued in all my future papers in this semester.
I thought my approach to write the assignment was error free but I found some difficulties when I saw counterarguments of NCAA who believed they students should not be paid as they believed that the student were student first and were certain to make their money once they join the majors. Also, they presented the issue of having paid college athletes would create differences among common students and student athletes. I managed to collect the information to support my point but I also believed there was a case of counter argument. This is where I found that my researching skills had improved as I looked continuously at different sources and collected relevant information to prepare a more detailed paper.
This where I realized I do not need to win the argument, I need to prove that my thesis has its value and requires consideration. Thus my critical analyzing skills kicked in and helped me in developing a recommendation for this assignment which while proving my point of paying college athletes also valued the point made by the NCAA and colleges where sports programs barley make profits. Once place where I did struggle is the exploration of meaningful information and analysis to give the paper a cutting edge.
I have to admit despite writing many papers after this I still find it the most difficult task of any writing assignment as without valuable information papers carry no weight and dependability. I have to point out that I have learned a great deal from this class and what can you expect from professors while writing essays and expecting comments and reactions. With the people I have met and the learning I have done in this class I will remember this experience for my future academic career. This semester has also taught me how to remain positive despite getting negative reviews on my written paper and how to correct my mistakes for future work. Working with classmates on their essays and assignments gave me another direction to look in as I learned many were writing in different styles than me which helped me to add more to my own style.
Importance of Assignment and Outcome
With this assignment I was able to hone my writing, analyzing, researching and evaluating skills all at once. I understood the meaning and the basics of writing assignments and learning outcome has helped me in other assignments given in this semester. I understand now that for any topic I need to critically evaluate all sides before making a judgment and understand the “hidden” meaning by analyzing each part in the paper, it is necessary to give a clear verdict on each possible outcome rather just summarizing whatever you find in your research. Even in this reflection I am now able to understand how to take a topic and divide it into set of questions and answer each one of them one by one after analysis of each topic. This ensures I rarely miss out on anything which is a necessity of the assignment. I have also understood the need for exploring and analyzing information at hand before writing them on paper and requirement for pacing yourself in paper writing.
I also understand how records, interviews, examples and other statistics give the paper a better look compared to simple summary of topic. The information analyzed and collected from different sources gave me a better idea on how papers are written in different styles. The outcome of more developed skills has given me a foundation of what it means to understand each topic and how to break a simple topic into parts to make it more meaningful and better analyzed. My experience with this assignment gave me insight to better evaluation of readings done on my assignments and investigating opportunities to make the assignment more detailed and understandable. Now my writing is miles better compared to what it was at start of this semester. It is getting tougher to find gaps in my process to write papers as I have started feeling I have grown as a writer. My writing skills and analyzing skills have expanded over the course of this semester and I can claim that paper writing is not that tough for me than it used to be.
Other Benefits of Outcome
The skills developed in this paper to perform research, meaningful writing, and critical analysis among others helped in other subjects I took in this semester in one way or another. Every subject or assignment I took required exploring and analyzing information available on draft before finalizing. With this understanding of basics of writing a paper, it will be of great benefit to me in my future academic works and career as these skills will be needed in all frames of my work as an academic student and professional career. English paper writings has given me an opportunity to become a better researcher which will be a great help in writing for other subjects and courses in pursue in future.
At present the knowledge learned will help me make better decisions when I write any assignment for subjects I take in present and coming semesters and for future I have a better foundation for my paper writing skills and knowledge than I used to have before this semester. I understand now that the main outcome which I needed to learn was how to research for my topics and prepare my argument, though it took my few months of my semester to understand but it will stay with me now for the rest of my academic career. With my knowledge learned through this semester I have developed a sturdy foundation on which can further improve in every class I take in my college and further career.
Before this experience I used to think analysis is just summarizing the information in a meaningful manner but I now understand the meaning of writing papers is more than summarizing. I have learned many phrases, words and statements which can be used in place of each other and how to improve my writing style each time I write one. The coursework this semester has been an eye opener and a learning curve for me.
