Actual Paper Link

Week 1 Self Assessment

Throughout my life I have had a somewhat passive view on writing, but then sometime around high school I began to realize how certain rules of writing were best to be heard instead of ignored. For example, rules regarding avoiding passive voice, and avoiding overly used words such as: be, been, where, were, am, was, etc. Later on in college I was told that organization was essential, but sometimes those papers which hold only five paragraphs aren’t necessarily enough to make a point, so it’s okay to add on more paragraphs. Additionally, I’ve also learned that it’s important to use as little words as possible in order to make a statement; however, I have struggled with this particular task more often than not.

Central strategies of my writing process include thinking about writing, brainstorming, making a rough draft, editing, and making revisions in roughly that order. Around last quarter I began to learn to also take into consideration the audience, purpose, and genre of the text/video. These steps have changed more over time because before I used to begin writing without any purpose until something remotely organized began to create. A sort of rambling of a conversation in paper. However, now the thought process helps me take into consideration multiple aspects of the writing process such as the audience in selecting what particular diction I use in writing. Experiences that have been the most influential to me include a paper I worked on in eleventh grade where I was expected to work on it for about four months. Beginning this paper I had wrote down a story about some girl who was trapped in an island, and I had thought it was brilliant; however, later on when I submitted the final paper a couple months later I realized the first draft contained no purpose, no suspense, and it included too much passive voice. It was the first time I had written a paper throughout a long period of time rather than in just a week. Another assignment I worked on that held importance to me in terms of my writing was the final rhetoric essay I did for writing in UCI last quarter. It was the first time I took into consideration why I picked a certain setting or a certain word rather than write biasly with only my view point. I recognized how to explain why I did the things I did in my writing and why I chose a certain genre such as Horror as opposed to Suspense.

I expect to use these experiences in Writing 39C by planning ahead of my writing more often, and asking myself, “why?” in regards to the decisions I make during my writing. I also plan on attempting to think objectively while others critique my writing in order to understand what they see wrong with certain choices I’ll make. Using the previous examples I believe trying to take into context the audience, message, and genre will also help me better target my writing to a specific group of people. This will also facilitate writing barriers in regards to what sort of paper I will write for a particular assignment.