Reflection

I have always thought that Ive had strong writing skills throughout my youth in

public schools. I got the highest score you could get on the standardized writing test as well as

excelled in all my English classes but after coming to a private university, where the competition

is real, I have noticed that my writing ability needs some major tune ups. As individuals we

were all asked to make an e-portfolio which would serve as a place where we can reflect on our

past writing assignments as well as a tool to use to help improve upon our writing skills for the

following assignments that would be given to us. With this portfolio I was able to reflect on my

writing for each paper as well as see how Ive progressed as a student in the class.

In the first writing assignment of the class we were asked to write a personal digital

narrative which would be all about the evolution of some type of digital device in our lives. At

first look I thought this prompt was going to be a walk in the park but I was shortly mistaken. At

first I thought the paper was just an easy narrative style essay based on the progressive usage

of different social media outlets and that I could type up one draft and be done with it.

Unfortunately, I learned the hard way and found out thats not the case anymore like it was in

high school. I learned that drafting and analysis in a paper is a necessity in writing a well

formatted essay. Multiple drafts are needed and revisions done on every single one to ensure

top notch quality when it comes down to making a final draft. And when you think you have a

perfect essay to turn in it never hurts to revise again. I also learned that feedback is a good

thing and should not be overlooked at all when correcting any mistakes made in the next draft.

Although I didnt do very well on this first assignment, I got to realize what my mistakes were

and how I was going to fix them in the following paper.

In our second writing assignment we were asked to write on visual/ textual analysis

essay and explain how they either can make or break a visual text. I found this paper extremely

difficult as I struggled even at the very beginning when it came down to picking a visual text. I

also found the analysis parts just as difficult because I had to go into full depth analysis about

the visual than I had ever had to in the past. At first I couldnt find any good visual/ textual

pieces to use. All the examples I looked over seemed to bland with not enough to in depth

ability to write a full analysis essay and write about. The analysis was a particular tricky part for

this paper since there was only so much that I could scrutinize from one picture. I felt like I was

going into depth but I wouldnt have enough to write about to complete the word count. The

mistake came when I decided to use more than one example in the visual/textual analysis. The

reason I used more than one example was for the sole reason to increase the word count since

one example couldnt make it. Unfortunately, the first final was a complete flop as I ended up

writing completely off topic and using more than one example to analysis. Thankfully for me I

had enough feedback to revise my mistakes and turn what was a failing paper into a

masterpiece. This paper definitely goes to prove that multiple drafts and an in depth analysis

were essential to making this paper evolve into a well-rounded essay.

Our last writing assignment was centered on exposing an ad for its underlying truth that

its advertising as well as spoofing it to make this advertisement better. For this paper I decided

to use a rape culture ad which turned out to be a very easy choice to write about and analysis.

At first I had a hard time finding the right ad to write about but with some guidance from my

teacher I was able to find the ad that worked. I then spoofed a new ad with another ad that

took all the rape culture out of it to promote the bottle of alcohol in a positive way rather than

in a negative light life the original ad. After I had a solid idea with where I wanted to go with this

paper I applied all the analytical elements that I knew and elaborated on each one. I analyzed

both ads by exposing each part of the ad piece by piece starting with facial expressions and

working my way down. I found this paper rather easy compared to the last two papers since I

felt like I could relate to the topic much better than the other two papers. The only difficult part

about this paper was the initial part of finding an advertisement to use.

When it came to writing my revisions what helped me the most was the major feedback

that I was given on my already graded papers. I took into consideration everything that was

written as critical feedback and applied the necessary changes to them. In the first paper I

lacked a lot of personal examples and decided that while revising my first paper I decided to

incorporate as many in the moment experiences that of social media that I could. I included

at least one example to each social media outlet then proceeded to analyze each example to

help add to the narrative as a whole. On paper two I was forced to start from scratch and back

track all the way to the first draft. In the paper two final I messed up and wrote completely off

topic from my original drafts which I believe was a major reason for the grade that I got.

Instead, this time I stuck solely to one visual/ textual example to analyze instead of multiple and

went more into depth by examining all angles of the image such as colors used, layout, and

image. I also added a paragraph about the relationship of text and visuals which I thought was a

good addition to the paper and answered some unanswered questions from before. In

conclusion, the revisions were much better than compared to the original final drafts with all

the mistakes taken into full consideration.

I very much enjoyed the blogs that we were assigned to do every week and found a

couple of them useful in later times during the class. I felt like they helped with practicing

analyzing which extremely beneficial to me since I needed as much practice as I could get. If I

could I would do blog assignments more often for the extra practice. I have yet to write another

blog since then but I would like to continue using my blog page for fun.

In the end of this reflection it is apparent that my writing abilities have improved

exponentially as compared to the first paper to the last one. I can definitely say that Ive

developed better writing skills both analysis wise and narrative wise throughout this semester.

A couple things that I learned this semester is that collegiate papers are nowhere like high

school papers are and that creating multiple drafts will be valuable assets when it comes down

to drafting a final essay. I also realized that analyzing a particular picture or ad takes more than

the typical when/where/who/and what kind of questions. Instead an analysis is looking for

more descriptive and specific ideas such as asking why and how to a visual or text. Dont be

afraid to use personal experience to add to a story as long as its on topic. Lastly, I grasped the

idea that a paper should flow like a story instead of randomly skipping time periods because

that just adds to the confusion of a paper. With these in mind I plan to continue to improve my

writing skills one draft at a time.