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Alexus Tapia
English 113 B
Professor Ditch
08 May 2015
Room for Improvements
During my second semester here at California State University of Northridge I have
learned that writing is an excellent skill to have and some people will need it throughout all of
college. I have also learned that no matter how hard you try on an essay, no matter how perfect
you may think it is there will always be room for improvement. I have learned a lot more this
semester then I did last semester; how to properly write my thesis, how to structure my essays,
how to make my essays longer in a more informative manner, and I learned how to use proper
punctuations.
In my project space essay Softball is Life, which is about my passion for softball and
how it has shaped my culture; I had a little bit of trouble writing my thesis and connecting my
body paragraphs back to the thesis. At first I had my thesis in two separate parts of my
introduction paragraph, I had it in the middle of my paragraph and another was the last sentence.
When my professor pointed it out to me I realized I did wrong. Writing my thesis in two separate
parts can confuse my reader and cause them to think that I am talking about one thing and not the
other. Towards the ending of that essay I stopped connecting my arguments to my thesis.
Although I didnt realize it at the time re-reading the essay I discovered that it started to become
off topic. I fixed that when I got the chance and connected it back to the thesis.

In my other essay Familia, which is about the epistolary novel The Guernsey Literary
and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, I didnt completely
discuss what I needed too. I should have gone into detail more about my topic which was about
family and the importance of it. I didnt connect it to the whole plot of the story which was
WW2. I thought about it carefully when I got back my essay and I realized I only connected
friendship and family together.
In the beginning of the semester I thought that my all my essays needed to be five
paragraphs long and that was the maximum. My teachers in high school never told me that I
could write more than five paragraphs and I never thought to ask. When discussing project space
Professor Ditch said that we shouldnt just write the five paragraphs, we needed to write more
and discuss are topic thoroughly and that stuck with me. During my time in high school I would
write my introduction, my three main topics, and a conclusion. During my time in college, I
learned that I still need those 3 paragraphs but I could go more into depth with the three main
topics and cause them to turn into other paragraphs.
With learning how to write more than five paragraphs I had to learn and to make a five
paragraph essay that needed to be four to five pages long into a ten paragraph essay. I discovered
that I should think about my topics and my ideas more thoroughly and see how I can incorporate
my ideas into a separate paragraph. In my project space essay Softball is Life I talked about
how playing in an away game is different than playing in a home game. I was going to leave it as
is but when I went to check my essay at the LRC I realized that if I discussed more about playing
at an away game and how that changes the cultural space I was used to, that would be a separate
paragraph.

What I also need to work on in my essay structure is not going off topic. At the time of
writing my essay I think I did connect it but after a while and re-reading the essay I figure out
that I should have discussed something relating back to my thesis. By the time I do re-read it its
too late because it has already been graded and that is something I should improve on. I should
write my essays a bit earlier and re-read it a day or two later.
Towards the end of the semester my professor and my SI instructors talked a bit about
punctuation marks and how to use are and is in a sentence; which really helped me a lot as a
writer. Since I am just beginning my journey towards becoming a much better writer I am sure
that this Reflection essay is still going to have several errors but like my professor has said there
is always room for improvement. What I am going to keep in mind for this essay and my next
essays are my punctuation marks and how to properly use the English language. Although my
professor didnt quite mention anything on my sentence structures I know that I can always do
better.
During my time in English 113B with Professor Ditch I have learned a handful amount of
useful tools to use in every essay I come across. A useful handbook she had us get was They
Say/I Say by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein, involved a lot of templates to use when
agreeing with someone, disagreeing with someone, how to add to what someone said , etc I
had this in my previous class and the book has helped me understand more on how to properly
structure my sentences. To this day I still go back and forth between my essays and the book to
make sure I get the sentence structure correct. I have found a lot of ways to make my essays
sound better and more structured this semester. As I continue college I will find a lot more ways
to fix up my essay and try to make them perfect as possible but I should always remember that
my essay can always use some improvements.