December 9, 2019

Joshua Smith
Writing 2
HSSB 1207

Dear Mr. Smith,

Over the pass quarter I really think I improved as a writer. I learn how to better read
articles and to find their important aspects. I know my writing can still use work but looking
back on my first Writing Project to my most recent I can see the difference. Over the course of
the quarter I learned better ways to prepare for my essays and analyze the readings.
The reason I chose both Writing Project 1 and Writing Project 2 is because I figured they
are my oldest of the three essays and would be the ones that need the most improvement. I really
liked the Writing Project 3 assignment, but I also figured that was my best of the three essays
and even though it could use some work it does not need as much work as WP1 and WP2.
For my Writing Project 1(WP1) I did almost a complete rewrite. When I first did the
essay, I had trouble understanding the assignment and I believe that showed in my original draft.
My original draft was also not as precise as it should have been. I decided to change my original
topic from Instagram comments on political posts to Buzzfeed News captions on Instagram
because my original idea was to broad and there were too many variables that affected what the
comments were so there was really no genre and the comments did not have the same
conventions. I decided Buzzfeed News captions was a better option because every post of theirs
looks similar and when I started to look, I noticed that each post follows the same pattern and
that was the conventions of the genre. I used the similar topics for each of my paragraphs, but I
was able expand more on the information sine I changed the topic.
I liked my Writing Project 2(WP2) much more than my WP1. That essay was much more
interesting to write because I found the subject, I was writing about much more interesting. For
this essay I decided against a full essay rewrite like I did for WP1, but I added more specific
information for my paragraphs. I did that so that I would have evidence to back up my statements
of things like the jargon in the genre and the tone. Without the evidence I noticed that my
argument was a lot weaker because the reader had to take my word for some of the statements I
made. When I added evidence, I then had proof that there was jargon and a blunt tone in the
writing of the Ecology of Infectious Disease discipline. I did keep a lot of my “Structure”
paragraph the same because I really liked the way I wrote that one, but I did change it a little to
try and make it flow better. The most helpful feedback I got for this essay was that the inclusion
of evidence in the “Structure” paragraph because this made me really think about including more
evidence in the other paragraphs.
 This class showed me how to better plan out my essays. The project builders were
extremely helpful to doing the essay. Without most of the Project Builder I feel like my essays
would have been a lot worse, but the project builders made me think about what I will need to
write and really analyze everything. I think my main take away from this course will be the
reading of How to Read Like a Writer by Mike Bunn because it showed me how I should look at
articles I read.1 This reading was very helpful for me to understand to what to look for in
readings. I will definitely think about some of the readings we did and look at the conventions of
articles I read in the future.

Sincerely,

Maya Olesen

Contact
Email: mayaolesen@ucsb.edu

1
Bunn, Mike. 2011. "How to Read Like a Writer." In Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, 71-86. San Francisco:
Parlor Press.