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

In these first 2.5 weeks, my reading and writing to a small extent has improved and has allowed me to analyze philosophies well. I like how our writing is supposed to be concise and in detail. We must explain our ideas well through quotes and the explanation of how these quotes embrace our ideas. I find it interesting that our writing should include complex words but also simple grammar. Mixing up the complexity of grammar adds another component to writing and makes it more diverse. As a writer I would say that I am struggling too add depth to my ideas and go in detail. This could be because I need to understand the texts better and learn more about these various philosophies. Further reading and analysis of texts would probably help aid this problem. I am trying to keep my writing more precise with a narrow focus. Being broad is not good for college writing. I am trying to adapt to college writing but I continue to have my own writing characteristics and flaws in my essays. My reading style has changed slightly as I now just look over what I think is “fluff” and not as important. I look for specific details that might be important to analyze and later write about. Thinking about other perspectives and trying to learn new ideas and philosophies is important in reading these texts. It is tough to expand our mindset and stray away from being one-minded. Seeing certain philosophies and understanding how philosophers believe they are right is sometimes hard.