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Marcos Torres

Professor Ludwig

English 101 H

4 December 2017

Writers Memoir

Throughout this semester, I feel as though my skills as a writer have improved greatly

and that I am much more prepared to voice my opinion in an academic context. Not only has my

research improved but I have also gained valuable insight into how using rhetorical analysis and

persuasive appeals can assist my writing. For my revised essay, I chose the research paper I had

done on local farming versus factory farming. I chose this essay because I feel like it deals with

one of the most important issues we are dealing with today as a human species and because I

believe it shows my best work for the semester. The changes I made were mostly grammar and

citing errors, but I did also add two extra sources as well as some minor formatting changes. My

rationale for making these changes are that they make more grammatical sense and the errors

might have cause some confusion for the readers. Some additions made might also help clarify

topics I should have expanded on more. There were also some sentences which I cut out because

they did not relate back to my thesis. This semester I feel as though I have made great strides in

my development as a writer.

Some of the work done for the revision of this persuasive essay included adding

information to the introduction and conclusion, as well as some re-wording. The introduction

was a bit underdeveloped so I explained in more depth what I was going to talk about in the
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essay. The conclusion also somewhat lacked interest and was very long so shortening it to make

it easier to understand should have helped. Also, at times I can be a bit wordy and repetitive so

eliminating unnecessary sentences should have helped make the essay stronger.

For the other two pieces I chose I made mostly only small edits and grammar corrections.

Firstly, I chose the essay I had written on Julia Butterfly Hills short memoir titled The Legacy of

Luna, where she uses a passionate tone and descriptive imagery to help her readers experience

what she felt and saw during the time she had spent on top off an almost 200-foot redwood that

she named Luna to help prevent forest decimation. This reading was my favorite of all that we

had done this year because of the incredible strength and courage Hill shows for the cause she

believes in. I also edited out all of the sentences that didnt make sense or relate to my argument.

The other assignment I chose to include in my portfolio was essay number two in which I

examined former Vice-President Al Gores Speech at the Kyoto Climate Change Conference in

1997 where he warns that if countries do not begin to take care of the environment, the

consequences could be deadly. In his speech, Gore presents his argument in a very serious tone

to convince readers that not only is this one of the more significant problems modern humans

face but also that the damage done could be irreversible. His approach to the text is very

effective. He uses the persuasive mode of pathos masterfully to influence the reader into

believing that this could be harmful for future generations. During the revision for this essay I

realized that I had been stacking sentences together which may have negatively affected my first

drafts so I did my best to edit that out. I also attempted to go back and explain in more depth the

writing that was considered vague and picked quotes that better supported my argument. I chose

these two essays because I feel they are a good reflection of much of the work I had done this

semester.
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During this semester I feel like my writing has improved drastically. My organizational

and format skills have improved greatly and I have also learned a variety of different techniques

to help my arguments. Examples of this include knowing how to write a well-developed thesis

statement, how to avoid run-on sentences, the many different persuasive methods and there uses,

and the importance of essay structure. I have also found myself exposing my work to different

people for feedback because of how helpful the in-class peer reviews were. If I dont spend long

on a piece, I often overlook small typos or grammatical issues and I realized that during this

class. If I dont craft my words quite as carefully as I could, and I tend to repeat myself a bit.

Having other people read my work has helped me to see many of the little errors I have been

making the other hand, if I spend a long time on a piece, it can be just as bad. Its easy to become

lost in a piece after a while, and have trouble stepping back and seeing it objectively. Its also

hard to forget all of the extra context I have in my head by that point, and read it as a reader,

who has little or no context about the topic. Again, having someone else read my work really

helps at this point. If nothing else, it gives me a break to refresh my mind before I come back for

more editing. Usually, though, I find it helps with my writing.

I have also found myself reading more and doing so widely because of this class. I am

actively trying to stop myself from wasting time on content thats not useful to me, this often

comes down to articles that say the same things Ive read a million times before. On the other

hand, Im trying to be open to reading more widelymore fiction, more varying nonfiction

topics, more research papers to help me add more knowledge to my reportoire. The more widely

read I am, the more chances I have to generate new, creative ideas or come up with interesting

angles for each topic I write about. I credit this to many of the interesting works we read
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throughout this semester which made the class never seem boring despite the rigorous work it

demanded.