My Writing Journey Throughout The Semester Essay Examples

Looking back throughout the semester, I can confidently say that my writing has improved, and I am now a better writer than I was at the beginning of the semester. There are three areas where I feel that I have shown tremendous improvement, and this includes writing a thesis statement, giving my paragraphs depth and detail and assessing the relevant materials to use in my work. However, although I have improved in these three areas, I still need more work on organizing my essays and transiting from one idea to another. This semester has been crucial in improving my writing, especially in the areas of writing a good thesis statement, giving my essays depth and detail and assessing the reference materials to use in my writing.
A thesis statement gives the readers an idea of what the essay entails. However, my previous essays did not have a thesis statement, and this made my readers feel lost. The good thing is that this is past me now, and I now know how to write good thesis statements. About three to four months ago, almost all the fellow students who have reviewed my essays had something negative to say about my thesis statements. In some essays, I placed the thesis statement at the wrong spot, and in other essays, the thesis statement lacked altogether. For example, one of the students said this about my thesis statement, “I don’t really know what the intentions in the essay are.” Another student concurred and had this to say about the essay, “The thesis written for this essay does not really explain the author’s overall intention.” After going through this course, my thesis statements have improved much, and so are the comments that I get from those who review my essays. For example, in one of my recent essays, one of the students had this to say, “The thesis statement is very well put and clearly states all the points you would like to discuss further in the essay.” In another essay, the student had this to say, “Thesis statement was easy to find and it does clarify the others intentions.” All these comments attest to the fact that I can write good thesis statements now.
Apart from the use of the thesis statement, the use of illustrations, examples, and details is a critical part of essay writing because all these items give the essay substance. The first two essays that I wrote were lacking in detail. For example, inside the first essay, the tutor wrote, “explain a bit.” Again, the tutor had this to say about one of the essays, “now you just need to focus more on execution and details.” After these comments had come up, I worked on adding more depth and detail to my essays, and in the preceding essays, I could use details that are more precise. This is evident because one of my fellow students who reviewed one of the essays that I wrote had this to say, “The essay has overall depth and detail with its illustration for the examples and many quotes to help explain the examples in lengthy paragraphs.” Another reviewer had this to say about one of my essays, “I think the essay had a lot of good depth and detail. Also the quotes were integrated very well and helped you get your point across very well.” Again, these comments are a testament of my improvement in terms of giving details (and giving precise details for that matter) and depth in my essays.
Research plays a critical role in the development of a good piece of writing. Throughout the semester, this is one area I have focused on, and I now feel confident that I can do thorough research before commencing my writing and bring different perspectives to the piece that I am writing. As of today, I can now assess the importance of a reference material relative to the paper that I am writing, and make a decision about whether to use that piece of writing or not. I also use different reference materials in order to bring points of opinion raised about the issue that I am tackling. Not all this would have been possible without taking this course.
Good organization of an essay is one of the key things that tutors look out for in an essay. However, at the beginning of the semester, my essays were not well organized and for this reason, I would repeat some ideas within the same paragraph and write disjointed paragraphs. Consequently, my essays lacked flow. For example, this is what the tutor had to say about the first essay, “I want you to focus on choppiness in your sentences. I think once your sentences start to flow better, the rest will come out naturally.” Another student had this to say about my essay, “The way the essay is organized doesn’t really explain how the Milgram experiment works.” Position sentences lacked in my initial essays and the claims were mixed up together with illustrations. My essays are better now because I know where to place position sentences and, I know how to place claims in paragraphs and how to support those claims. However, I need to keep on improving on the organization of my essays because some of the papers that I write lack clarity. In one of my essays, the tutor commented that my essay was vague, and in another essays, the tutor pointed out the fact that I did not give clear explanations on some of the paragraphs. This is something that I am still working on and can still improve on with more practice.
Apart from good organization, an essay also needs also needs proper transition from one idea to the next. Transiting from one idea to another to another has always been a challenge for me. For example, in one of the essays, the tutor recommended that I should have a transition before using quotes. In another essay, the tutor pointed out the fact that I did not have a good transition between the preceding sentence and the next one. Although I am still working on my transition, I do not feel confident that I have done enough. Sometimes I lack good words to introduce an idea that would separate it from the previous one. It is my opinion that although I have improved in this area, I still need more practice in order to be confident that my essays have a good transition. For this reason, I need to learn more vocabulary, and do more research on the best means to transit from one idea to another or from one paragraph to another without losing the reader’s attention.
In conclusion, my writing has improved greatly, especially in the areas of writing a thesis statement, giving my essays depth and details and researching about the subject I am tackling. However, although I have improved in these three areas, I still feel that I need to improve on the organization of my essays and in transiting from one point of view to another. I am confident that I can still improve in these areas with more practice, and I am willing to put to work the things that I learned from this course in order to continue improving my writing.