Writing this research paper has significantly developed my writing skills. Since the beginning, I have spent countless hours on this assignment in order to make it as good as possible. This process, while challenging, has been manageable as I was provided with all of the right tools. For starters, I was able to choose my topic. Passion is the foundation to a good paper. Since I was interested in my paper, I was motivated to make the most contentious and concise argument possible. In previous classes, this was not the case. Teachers expected me to write about topics I was not passionate about, which caused my papers to have loose ends.
Another reason why the process of writing my research paper has been manageable is because the whole class revolves around it. Everything that I have learned and done in class has only enhanced my writing skills. All of the little things have made a difference. For example, Fight Club has been incredibly influential towards the process of writing my research paper. As I have discussed in previous blog posts, being able to come up with arguments on short notice and defending them is a valuable skill that is essential for research papers. Also, They Say, I Say has refined my writing ability. It taught me the importance of audience and how a relevant argument is a good argument. Not to mention all of the useful paradigms that have improved the flow of my paper. Even the rhetorical vocabulary has improved my writing (and my chance of getting hired in an elevator).
Aside from the weekly routines, I thought that having multiple rough drafts was beneficial in the development of my research paper. In high school, the only drafts we had were peer editing, which wasn’t helpful at all. Having the professor look it over and give high and low order concerns really helped me focus on what direction I need to go in as I developed my paper. This really helped pace my workload out and make my paper as concise as possible.
The only issue I had with the process of writing my research paper was not knowing the requirements at the early stages. It would have been incredibly helpful to meet with the professor before I began to write the paper. I could have used the direction early on so I knew what to look for when coming up with my paper. Instead I spent a lot of time looking for articles that I didn’t end up using. This was frustrating because if I had used my time efficiently I could have finished the process a lot sooner.
All in all, the process of writing this research paper has been interesting. It seems that I am never quite finished with it as there is always someway to improve it (like most things). Nevertheless, I am excited to see what the outcome of my paper will be as I have never put so much time into one assignment.
Yo Danny, I really agree with the points you make in your blog post. I can relate how They Say, I Say has helped your writing because it has also helped me when I write my own papers.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading about your ideas about the class and writing this paper. Do you think you were still able to write a proper paper even without the direction you wanted?
ReplyDelete