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Jonathan Rios

Professor Ditch

English 115A

9 December 2020

My Improvements

As I started to write from the very beginning of the semester to now. I believed I made

many improvements on writing. Not just writing in general but creating essays that really proved

my point and make me an effective writer that can argue any topic, if I support the right amount

of textual evidence to back it up. It is not just evidence you may need but the analysis you

provide that beautifully wraps everything together and drives your point home. Without those

key aspects, you cannot prosper as an effective writer and will failed in arguing in topics you feel

strongly about. As I learned important steps on creating an effective essay throughout the

semester, I have become a better writer in the process.

One thing I have learned from taking this course is the importance of creating a title that

accurately reflects the essay you are re writing. As I wrote my first essay, I did not make an

accurate title that reflected on that specific essay. I just wrote a generic one. For example, in the

project space essay, I wrote those previous words as my title. As I learn from taking this course

throughout those weeks, that is not an effective way to write a title. So, as I looked back on my

first essay I wrote for this class, I renamed it to Finding True Happiness. I believed this made the

essay stand out a lot more than the previous title would had made it looked. This also goes for

the second essay, project text essay. Instead, of writing a generic title again, I made sure to put an

accurate title that will perfectly reflect what my entire essay was about. I did not need to wait

until post-grading to finish out that process.

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Another very important lesson I learned when writing an effective essay, is creating a

very strong thesis that really drives the point home. A weak thesis will really destroy the entire

essay. No matter how much textual evidence you bring up or analysis you create with that said

evidence. It will fall flat if there is not a strong thesis to go along with it. For instance, for my

first essay I was not very specific or detailed when writing my thesis. My previous thesis had

stated that Howard Cutler and Dalia Lama had the better argumentative article without stating

the specifics of it. So, in my post-grading stage, I made sure I had list out the specifics. Those

specifics included that specific article had brought out many specific studies that were proven

relevant in what they were trying to preach. Brought up the specific credentials they had that

proven the article had very strong ethos. I made sure that my thesis was debatable. If it was not

debatable, then there is no point to prove and the reader will feel very lost in what you are really

trying to say in your essay. If I were too generic, the case will remain the same and it would not

make it a very strong argumentative essay. Anyone would be able to disprove it and make the

essay fall flat on his head.

Another example of this improvement of my writing, is creating a very strong

introduction paragraph in my essay. Creating a very strong introduction paragraph is very

detrimental in captivating your audience. If your introduction is very weak or too long and

boring the reader would stop reading. That is the last thing you want to happen because that

mean you already failed in arguing your point. In my first essay, I made an introduction that

seem too long and involve too much analysis right off the gate. Any reader would feel it would

be too long to read or boring to read and will leave off the first page. So, I recreated my

introduction and cut off the fat and made sure I was only introducing the article I would be

talking about and end the introduction with a strong thesis. As time has move on, there were
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many lessons I accumulated that made me a better writer. In the future, I would carry those

lessons into the academic career I wish to pursue.