Padilla 1

Jose Padilla
Professor Collins
ENGL 1301
29 November 2016
The Temporary End
I am currently earning a degree in process technology while being a part-time worker at
two jobs. My first semester has been a successful balance of school, work, hobbies, and a social
life and I plan on continuing my busy lifestyle throughout the next 3 semesters. Coming into the
class, I expected to struggle considerably because writing has always been my weakest academic
link. Meeting word count, writing down my ideas, and creating flowing content has always
caused roadblocks. In the end, I tapped into my true potential by applying newly founded
strategies. The use of academic writing, (MEAL) plan, and revising/editing caused a positive
impact on essay two and three in comparison to essay one.
Academic writing is a method of communication that sets a professional tone. Out of
habit, I broke every rule except setting up modern language format (MLA) format. The use of
vague descriptors, first and second person, and not writing out numbers persisted as the most
apparent up until essay three. I believed I knew what professional communication looked like,
but my rough draft of essay one proved otherwise. That rough draft consisted of eight academic
rules being broken, the majority of which had to do with diction. Over repeated use, the rules of
academic writing have stuck and shown evident throughout the rough draft of essay three. The
only mistakes in essay three involved two uses of the word our. Academic writing drastically
improved my issue of meeting word count, because of the rules forcing me to write my ideas out
thoroughly.

Padilla 2
The MEAL plan creates organization in an essay by splitting up a paragraph into
segments. Learning the MEAL plan was the most beneficial strategy I have learned. Application
of the strategy is practical in many forms of writing that ranges from visual analysis to an
informative essays. On essay one, I said this also many times because of the lack of formatting
skills. I jumped through ideas without any real transitions and had to move around sentences to
create flow. Using the MEAL plan led to essay three not needing revision of content. All of my
ideas got written down and I even used two different variants of the MEAL plan to get my point
across. Including variance created a more interesting flow of ideas that without would have
crammed the content. The MEAL plan helped me write down my ideas in an organized format.
Revising/editing has to do with improving the structure and content of an essay. What I
found most beneficial included strategies to eliminate to be verbs. In essay one, I originally
found seventeen uses of to be verbs and fixed half. Further examination showed that in fact I
missed an additional seventeen to be verbs. Development of my revising skills led to a success
on essay two. My rough draft consisted of seventeen to be verbs and I eliminated nine. Later
examination revealed that I also did not overlook any unlike essay one. Out of anticipation of
knowing I will have to fix those mistakes, my writing has improved from the initial draft and my
content has suffered less editing. That benefits the essay in a sense that the original idea stays
intact. The development of editing skills caused a higher word count and a better flowing essay.
Academic writing, MEAL plan, and revising/editing caused my final essays to be
immensely better than when I started the class. I have learned the most about writing skills in
english 1301 than in any previous english course. My overall experience was a complete success,
because my progress surpassed initial expectations.