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Steve Chale

Professor Ditch

English 115

9 May 8, 2018

Reflection Essay

Through the semster writing in this class was challenging but in a good way as it helped

me improve my writing. This class helped my writing as I needed to use more evidence and use

certain things I would have not before such as more reliance on evidence and needing to research

as much. However, because of what the professor required from us it made us students find more

evidence to back arguments in our argumentative essays. This can be seen in the second essay

when we had to use outside sources to back our argument. In the second essay I had to use an

article by BBC called “Did the Blitz really unify Britain” which talks about World War II and

how it affected Britain which in result connected to my essay. These requirements for us too

write made it more challenging to write a paper because it asked more and to be smart with what

we use, such as using the evidence as even that will be question for credibility.

However, in the start finding and using the right grammar, evidence, and creating the

right argument was challenging as before I would not fully use the right grammar which in turn

would make my writing not very clear which would result in me not making the right argument.

Furthermore, the disorganization in my essays would make it hard to fully address the prompt

and it would make my argument weak and in turn it made my work weak with many plot holes.

In addition, in past essays there was a lack of evidence which made my argument have no
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credibility and weak but with Professor Ditch teaching and requirements for essays it made sure

to use evidence which helped me become a better writer.

To help address my issues in writing Professor Ditch teachings and guidelines for writing

an essay helped me improve my writing. Furthermore, visiting the LRC helped my writing

because of someone else revising my work and catching my mistakes helped me learn from my

mistakes. Such improvement can be seen in the grades received for my essay as my first grade

was a 74 percent and jumping to an 81 percent for my second grade.

The skill that improved more in each essay was the use of evidence as I made sure to

check the source was credible and making sure to use it correctly in my essay. To make sure of

this I would look for connection between the source and my argument. An example is in my

essay Happiness in Guernsey” when I use a quote from the article “The Source of Happiness” in

the book Pursuing Happiness in which it talks about a person outlook. This connects to my essay

as I wrote about the environment the characters of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie

Society lived in. This helped my argument of how the environment the characters lived in World

War II and how it affected them. This showed how using the right evidence could make my

writing better and how evidence helps to back an argument.

Overall, I feel as my writing has improved greatly as I felt my writing before felt like the

bare bones of an essay while currently my writing is now full, and I am able to defend my

argument. In addition, the help received made me a better writer as I know what to do when

needing to defend my writing. My writing has improved greatly from my first essay to my

second essay which is shown with the grade received as also I am more confident in my writing

because of what was taught.

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