Papazyan 1

Marine Papazyan
Professor Lewis
English 113A
December 11, 2015
First Semester Writing Experience
Dear To Whom It May Concern,
This semester, I took my first ever college english class, English 113A with Professor
Kimberly Lewis. Before taking this class, I was already familiar with what college level writing
would consist of because during my senior year in high school I took AP English. Although I
took AP English in high school, I was still frightened to write my first college paper because I
didnt know how the grading process was like in college. I thought that there would be no
outside resources to help me with my essay but, luckily I was wrong. Throughout this semester, I
had only three essays to write, memory and language essay, ethnography essay, and social media
essay.
My very first essay was suppose to be about either a memorable memory I have or
language issues. I decided to write about a language barrier I had as a child, as you have all read
in my first progression. When I first started writing this essay I was very insecure of how it will
turn out. I kept remembering everything my high school teacher had taught us about writing an
essay. I tried to sink in every advice he gave us as I was writing my essay. Before I write any of
my essays I always write an outline first just to stay on topic and be more organized. By doing
that I created a strength in my writing which is to be well structured and organized. For this
essay, I decided to go to the LRC (learning resource center), during my time there the workers

reviewed my essay and explained to be how I can make it better. The LRC helped me understand
sentence structure, grammar, and making my thesis stronger.
The second essay that I wrote was an ethnography paper about a restaurants description.
I had never done a description essay like that, therefore, it was a bit harder for me. This essay
was definitely a challenge for me. I tried my best to write it and revised it only once. After my
essay got graded, I took a look at all the mistakes that I made and learned from it. My professor
gave me great advice on how to make my essay better and Im planning on using any advice she
gave on my future papers. I realized that my biggest weakness when it comes to writing is my
grammar. I seem to have a lot of trouble with mixing up the point of views. For example, I would
always mix my first person point of view with third person and that gets my readers confused
most of the time.
My last essay is about social media as you have all read under progression 3. This was
probably on of the longest essay that I have ever done which was a challenge just like my second
essay. For this essay, I made a very descriptive outline so I wont lose track of the prompt. In this
essay I was told to cite any sources that I used while writing this essay which I had never done
before. The peer review we did in class definitely helped because my classmates caught mistakes
that I didnt and I got a chance to listen to what they think of my essay. This semester helped me
grow as a writer because I had to write essays that I never wrote before. All the help that my
classmates, professor, and the LRC gave me had improved my writing because I learned the
mistakes that I did.
Sincerely,
Marine Papazyan