Reflective journal
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First
of all, I would like to thank you for the only class of my semester that I
looked forward to attending. The best part for me was the discussions we had in
class that helped me sit and listen to the opinon of others.
Second
of all, being French educated, I faced some obstacles with my writing style.
For instance, I was presenting my plan for the rest of the essay at the end of
the introduction and I tried to avoid I and You as much as possible. But, I
learned pretty quickly that it was okay to loosen up a little and write more
like I wanted to and me instead of writing like I was programmed to by my
teachers and the French baccalaureate.
The
most baffling thing for me, however, was the paragraphing, it is done
differently than what I’m used to. For us “frenchies”, paragraphing is very
subjective (I think that’s true in all cases) but it is based first and
foremost on using one paragraph for every general idea and going to the next
line when you want to emphasize a certain important question or an important
idea. Now I’ve learned that multiple paragraphs for the same general idea are
actually easier to read and understand and way easier to write because they
help you get straight to the point.
As
for the content of my writing, I learned early on that it’s okay to use other’s
work (of course while giving credit) to inspire your own, something we were not
allowed to do in high school. Moreover, the discussions we had in class about
various subjects pushed me to make the content of my writing more personal and
yet not too much. In a way, these discussions helped me see that your personal
take on things help you go further and deeper into a certain subject making you
want to understand the hidden aspects of said subject.
I’ve
learned a lot about my writing and I can see that I’ve improved a lot but I
still have things to work on like my constant run-ons, my paragraphing and how
I select information. When I’m writing I tend to write really long sentences
that end up having no real meaning. The bigger problem is that sometimes while
I’m rereading my work I don’t really see that I’ve written a sentence three
lines long unless someone points it out. Another thing I really need to work on
is my paragraphing because even though I’ve figured out I still have problems
with it sometimes. The most important thing I need to work on though is
probably the way I select information I want to include in my writing. I find
it hard to choose only a couple of ideas to work on for a specific paper I’m
writing because most of the time there’s so much you can say but at the same
time you have to filter it and only talk about what’s relevant. I’ve realized
that what I do in this situation is I write all the ideas and develop each a
little, something I did in my first essay response.
Another
thing I do a lot and that I probably shouldn’t because this is academic writing
is that I tend to poeticize things. I think that is because of my French
background, but I can see how it is very unnecessary when writing an academic
essay. In fact, it can distract from the subject at hand and it can introduce
emotions to a matter that should be treated subjectively in order to send the
right message and convey information in the right way.
All
in all, I’ve learned a lot about my writing this semester and I still have a
lot of work to do but I also learned a lot about new subjects and about new
ideas on subjects I already “knew” about through the writings of others.
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