Reflective Essay: My Growth As A Writer

Writing consists of various mechanisms that, when utilized properly, can craft the ideal paper. Every year that I take a writing course, I explore those mechanisms, learning to use them to my benefit in my growth as a writer. This year, I focused argumentative writing and how to convey my knowledge about a topic through evidence gathered, and how to accurately convey it to my audience. Considering these factors when writing is vital, and for me, provided a sense of direction. To gather evidence, I took advantage of Arizona State University’s resource database. If my topic was to general, this helped me narrow it down, or if I had no topic at all, this was a reliable baseline to build from. Along with this resource, peer feedback and new brainstorming techniques were also explored to aid in making my writing

This, to me, meant learning to shorten my topic so it would not be so general. I experienced this quite often when working on my first writing project. It was like a maze game. I would run with all of my ideas, hoping to reach an end; only to soon find out, that by doing so, I was blocking myself from being on the one clear path. For example, in the first writing project, I was to focus on how the painting was being communicated to its audience. As I began, I discussed the “how” of the prompt, but as soon as I reached the third paragraph, I had started telling the reader about the “what” of the painting. I had lost focus because I had so much that I wanted to run with that I forgot the central prompt. To help refocus myself for the next writing assignment, I had to rework the way I brainstormed. Instead of jotting down numerous ideas that I would compile in my essay, I had to come up with a topic then keep branching from it until it that was not so general. Once I did this, my essays became more concise and