ENGL 298 B: Intermediate Writing Social Sciences   Autumn 2011, University of Washington

Other than that being a great song, I do think the title reflects the objective of this assignment in reflecting on how we have developed as writers thus far.  Hence, “look at me now.”  So let’s get started.

I feel like the directions in class are fairly clearly given.  I can follow, but I think everyone could benefits for a quick minute at the end of class to recap and clarify the homework and what exactly happened.  I see the directions are encouraging and challenging, but that’s what’s so great about it.  I have never really seriously wrote a dialogue before, and here I am struggling to construct a seemingly impartial conversational dialogue between two authors in which one I am heavily biased towards..  But I see this as all constructive, I love the idea of exploring new methods of writing and expanding my writing ability to where it needs to be when asked.

In the first two minor papers, I really did learn a lot.  On how to write a proper thesis paper for your class as well as a paper proposal.  Before I took this class, I had never had to write such an extensive and elaborate paper proposal ever, and to write in such a third person perspective when constructing this type of essay is just eye-opening.  And to receive such profound comments on my writing only further clarifies what type of essay you want, now I can mold and shape my paper into one that suitably satisfies your requirements.  The first paper was one that I wrote for fun, it was just to test the waters in terms of determining what you like and what you don’t in a paper.  I am completely open to any criticism anyone has to my work, although it may seem like I reject criticism, I do take it into consideration, as long as it makes sense and logically follows up with my work.  Most of my change is in my writing style.

My reading and research methods and habits are the same.  I would like to think I have a fairly strong background in research and reading to begin with since I participated in four years of speech and debate, as well as higher level English and Critical thinking courses in high school, so the material we are going over now, isn’t that bad.  Not to out-right seem like I’m bragging, but I’m just answering the last question.

One thing I am concerned about though is being consistent with my work.  I didn’t do so hot on my vocab quiz that we had on Tacit Consent, Ignorance, and Political Theory.  I didn’t get to where I wanted to be, I got a 75.  But that’s because I didn’t study, at all.  I thought I didn’t need to, but now, I see that I should really give it my all when doing even work that I am comfortable with.  Because I thought I had a fairly good grasp of the material, doesn’t mean I can write it down and convey it on paper the way I need to.  I learned that the hard way, and am now very open to change my habits.  Hahaha.  So yeah, that’s where I am now..