When I was in High School, I had four weeks to write a five-paragraph essay, and I thought it was hard to do that, I would always wait until the last minute to do it. Then, when I entered college, having to do a six to eight-page paper was definitely a change. It also didn’t help that I thought my writing was the weakest part of my college career. The process of writing my annotated bibliography was one of the worst times here in college because I procrastinated until the last minute to finish writing and submit it. After writing that, I learned about myself that I like to wait until the last minute to do things, and then I’m expected a great grade, and that’s not how things work in college. I needed to start having a schedule of when I was going to write parts of my paper rather than trying to do it at night. I started applying that to my other classes and my grades in my writing when beating other things I thought I was better at. Then came our first shitty draft, and I was excited because I wanted to show Dianna that my writing was better than what my annotated bibliography was. I started writing that a week before it was due, I started with a footprint of what I wanted to write about, and I just started writing. When I turned in that paper, I felt happy with what I submitted, and I learned how I like doing my papers. I might be leaving this English class, but don’t worry; I will remember what I have learned throughout every book we have read and all of my revised work to put forth in my other class at Longwood University and my career in the future.

This semester, I have grown a lot as a writer. At the beginning of the semester, I was not confident in my writing and struggled to meet the academic expectations. I didn‘t always know how to organize my ideas or how to present them clearly. Over time, though, I‘ve become more confident and learned a lot about how to approach different types of writing.

I feel that one of the biggest changes I‘ve noticed is how much better I am at following different writing structures, especially for different subjects. For example, I have learned that social sciences use something called IMRaD, or Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion, whereas for humanities or other areas, you should use an argumentative and analytical type of writing structure. These differences in requirement have prepared me for writing at different classes.

Now that I am more confident, I feel ready for any upcoming writing assignments. I have learned to use sources better and to cite them properly, which made my work well-organized and accurate. I don‘t feel as uncertain about how to approach assignments anymore.

This will also help me later on in college because now I know that each subject has a different style of writing and I can adjust my writing to what the professors expect.

This will also help me in my future career. As a communication major, being able to write clearly is important, whether I‘m writing reports, proposals, or emails. Overall, this semester has made me a more confident writer, and I feel more prepared for future writing tasks in both school and my career. Thank you, Dr. Baldwin!