Velasquez 1

Jazmin Velasquez
Professor Beadle
English 113A
December 8, 2015
Reflective Essay
Throughout the semester my expectations were to figure out in what areas I needed
to improve. At first I thought this class was going to cover different topics that most
English classes discuss. I also thought that this class was going to have tests or quizzes
based on what we would learn. But in the end this class focused more on writing and
organizing an essay.
Writing is not one of the things I enjoy doing because I know that most of the time I
dont make any sense and that is why most of the time it is hard for me to explain my
argument. What I like about writing is that you can write what you believe and you can
express your thoughts about a topic. There are no rules about what it is right and what it is
not right.
I learned about rhetorical appeals and this has to do with pathos, logos, and ethos. In
order to convince a reader about our argument, these three things are very important to do.
It helps our essays looks better and it gives more information about our argument.
It was hard for me to realize that all this time I have many mistakes that I need to fix
when writing an essay because if I want to be a good writer I need to overcome this
problems. For example one of the challenges I experienced this semester was that there was

Velasquez 2

a total page number that we needed to reach and for me this was hard because I was only
used on writing five paragraphs essays without caring about how many pages I had. I
overcome this challenge by trying to find more evidence and provide it on my essay.
As a writer I can write and give evidences but sometimes I dont explain them
correctly but I can understand what I am trying to explain to the reader. I feel like I
improved in giving more evidence in order to support my argument. I also improved in not
repeat myself a lot of times when writing an essay. I still tend to do it but I know I have
improved. Also I improved on paying closely attention to the article I am trying to support.
Also I have improved in writing my thesis statement in an essay.
It makes me proud that now I am able to reach the minimum page when writing an
essay of five through six pages. It also makes me proud that now I take other peoples
comments as a guide to make my essay better because before I would take it the wrong
way.
The skills that I have gain from this course would be to write my essay on time and
always read the topic I am going to support really good and that I know that I am
understanding what I am reading in order to give a good thesis. Also I am going to let a
peer revise my essay in order for that person to give me advice in order to make my essay
better.
In order to write a good essay it is very important to use many evidence and use
personal experience to connect a topic to real life. Also making a peer revise your essay
helps to improve our writing because the way they read the essay is different from the way
we do it. Also reading aloud the essay makes us see or mistakes.