Alexandra Rodriguez

Dr. Loren Higbee

English 1301-114

14 October 2021

Reflection Essay 2

Throughout the writing process, many students often struggle with comprehending the prompt

that is given to them by the instructor. As they write or brainstorm on what their paper is going to be

about, they frequently decide to change topics or get stopped in their tracks causing the student to not be

able to write or come up with any more ideas. This is often referred to as “writer’s block”. During this

essay, I was a victim of all these writing disasters.

By creating multiple essays, you get much better at writing and understanding the correct way of

how to properly form the paper and cite your sources. Something I learned from Essay 1 that I was able to

incorporate into my Essay 2 was how to correctly write about the prompt. During the formation process

of Essay 1, I included multiple means of opinion and structured my sentences as if it were a research

paper. However, in this essay, I believe I was able to properly state the prompt which was how the

magazines were a form of communication between my three communities. I made sure to not include any

opinions and solely stick to what the writing prompt was about.

Continuing, engaging in new information, and applying it to new work is always a great idea, only if it

also applies to what the homework or assignment is about. However, there was not something I learned

from Essay 1 that was not applicable to Essay 2, due to the fact that I started off with similar ideas of

genre, and communities then switched my ideas after careful consideration on what I believed was more

fitting for the Essay 2 prompt.

Similarly, many students are able to learn something in class and are able to apply it to other

courses, depending on if it is fitting to the situation or not. Something I learned from Essay 2 that can be

applied to other courses is for one, how to turn in my work on time. Learning how to gain responsibility

on your assignments is something incredibly important when it comes to academic work. Additionally,
learning how to search for information and not copying it word for word. Plagiarism is something that can

get a student into incredible trouble. Writing assignments are something that the majority of courses do in

order to get a few more grades into the Grade-Book. If you are caught plagiarizing, you will most

definitely get kicked out of your college and possibly will not be able to get accepted into another

university. The last thing I learned was how to revise my essay properly. It is important to be able to

carefully proofread any form of writing before turning in your paper to get the highest grade one possibly

can.

Like mentioned earlier, there are a few things that can, and cannot be applicable to other class

courses when learning new information. Nonetheless, based on the information I absorbed, there is

nothing that would not be applicable to other courses.

When given a task that requires the same genre in multiple communities, it makes it easier to

form a proper essay because the genre is related. I was able to find information about my community in a

quicker manner and was able to correctly write about them because they included around the same

information in the similarity aspect of the writing prompt. This will help me in approaching writing tasks

in the future because I will be able to properly search for the correct information when needed and know

when I need to ask for help at the writing center.

When writing a paper, it is always useful to ask for a second or even a third opinion when it

comes to revising your essay. During class, we were asked to turn in our essays to Blackboard and review

our peer’s work. Based on the comments my classmates gave on my essay, they mentioned that I had

good ideas and to elaborate more on them. On the contrary, something they said I lacked was my essay

structure. I needed to add two of my communities to compare and contrast them, rather than to solely

focus on one community to write about. I used that information to use and tried to improve my writing.

These strengths and weaknesses are different from the Essay 1 writing because this paper focused more

on essay structure rather than genre and community as my first essay did.

Similarly, when getting a second opinion or have another individual oversee your writing, they

will make constructive criticism comments to help one improve. The comments that my Instructor gave
me were very useful in the sense of how to stick to the essay prompt. I believe something that will be

different is how I improved with sticking to the correct writing assignment prompt idea.

In school, there are many challenges one has to face in order to succeed. In this case and writing,

in particular, a challenge for me was trying to get to the correct word count without having to add filler

information. I tried providing factual and only important and relevant information in my essay to be able

to get to the word count and still make it sound good. On the contrary, the least challenging part of this

writing was being able to finish this in a reasonable amount of time unlike Essay 1 because I was more

knowledgeable on how to properly write the essay this time around.

Continuing, because life hits us with many challenges and obstacles, we are able to learn from

them and eventually improve. In this essay, I believe it changed my identity as a writer because I am more

well-spoken and am able to provide the reader with the correct information.

To sum up, many people go through lots of difficulties and breezes when it comes to writing a

paper. Although it is challenging at first, it can make you improve a lot more than one thinks. I believe

this essay made me a better writer overall.