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Dear Valentina,

Through this course I’ve learned more strategies for planning out my writing and I have
become more comfortable going over my writing and revising it in general. I used to try and do it
perfectly the first time, but this course has really shown me how much revision is important and
how in the future I should use it more in my writing and not just do the minimum of grammatical
changes. This class has given me more of a hands-on experience with UC Santa Barbara’s
online library system and how to use the advanced searches. Writing 2 also allowed me to have
more of a direct experience with researching articles in general and what I should look out for.
Project 2 in particular introduced me to IMRad formatted papers and how to use UCSB’s library
search function to find that certain format. I’ve learned more about genres and knowing about
those has helped me pay more attention to audiences and use the genre to help identify the
audience and vice versa. Before this class I had never thought about writing genres in that way
or in much depth. Whenever I pictured writing genres I saw mysteries, thrillers, and nonfiction.
But Writing 2 has shown me that everything that has to do with written language can be a genre
or subgenre.

What I specifically revised in my Project 1 was the ending and making sure my
translation fit the conventions of the genre. Adding the emojis and “Likes” did better my project
because those are important conventions of a Facebook post’s comments. I also added more of
my personal beliefs and argument to the conclusion of the retelling of the party. Doing this also
made the end seem more natural and it did not cut off as harshly as the first draft. I changed the
character “Carson Lacour” into my name to insert myself into the conversation. This makes it
clear what I am retelling and what my personal argument and point of view is. In my Project 2, I
added more thoughts to the quotes and references I took from various sources and attempted to
relate these more to the changes I made in my translation from its original source. These
changes reflect how I learned more about genres and the conventions that go with them. Genre
conventions affect how readers interpret the tone and writing as a whole. I have changed as a
writer by becoming less afraid to start projects and begin the writing process. I have gained
some confidence in my ability to be able to write because writing is a process and the only way
to get better is to write more and revise even more.

For future writing projects my plan is to set goals and mini checkpoints for myself. Small
timeline goals to make sure I leave myself enough time to revise properly. Riding off of that I
also plan to revise more in the future because in the past I have not done in depth revisions.
Most of the time I would change a few small details, but not really add more content or depth
into my arguments and essays.

Sincerely,
Olivia Bivert
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