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Dear Professor Chajdas,

When I first began this class, I believed that I knew everything there was to know about

writing at the college level. Having already completed the six courses I needed to fulfill my

general education writing requirement during my first year of college, I came into Writing 2

assuming that there would not be much new information for me to learn. After completing this

course, I now realize how wrong I was. In the short ten weeks of the class, I feel that I have come

to better understand what constitutes good writing at the university level and how to improve my

own writing.

One of my most profound takeaways from this course is the importance of balancing the

lengths of my paragraphs. In the past I have struggled with condensing my paragraphs and

finding natural paragraph breaks to split a longer idea. Last year in my European literature

course, I remember writing a paragraph on the Iliad that lasted nearly two pages. I realize now

how this can be tremendously damaging to the overall flow of an essay and hard these long

paragraphs can be to read. I am now more cognizant of the length of my paragraphs and how

they may affect the reader. As summarizes in E. Shelley Reid’s Ten Ways To Think About

Writing: Metaphoric Musings for College Writing Students, “Writers need to remember that

paragraphs help readers focus and manage their analytical readings.” While making my revisions

for my portfolio, I made a point to make sure that my paragraphs were not overwhelming

information vomit. I found quickly in my Writing Project 2, that my introductory paragraph was

unbearably long. I then decided to delete three sentences that I felt were unnecessary in order to

help the overall flow of the essay. I feel now that my Writing Project 2 is significantly stronger

and easier for readers to evaluate my argument.

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Additionally, I learned the importance of audience and rhetorical situation through this

course. I had never taken much account of who I was writing for or under what circumstance I

was writing. Regardless if it was for a political science course or a comparative literature course,

I often used the same conventions and the same style of writing. I feel that this caused my

writing to be either too informal or formal for the given situation I was writing in. The reading

that truly showed me how wrong I had been writing was Kerry Dirk’s Navigating Genres. In

what I felt was stated directly at me, Dirk says, “You need to consider the context in which it is

being used. As such, it’s important to be aware that the research paper you might be required to

write in freshman composition might be completely different than the research paper you might

write for an introductory psychology class.” After reading Dirk and the other course material, I

was constantly considering my audience and the rhetorical purpose of my writing. Even with

this, though, I still sometimes slipped and wrote too informally for this course. Specifically in my

Writing Project 2, my sentences where I showed how North Korea was being connected to prior

historical precedent were extremely informal. While revising I made sure to use a more academic

and formal tone.

Perhaps the most important lesson I learned from this course is the importance of writing

first drafts. I am almost ashamed to admit that frequently in the past I would turn in the first draft

of my writing for some of my courses. Naturally, being a procrastinating college student, one

draft was often all I budgeted time for. I would sit down the day before the paper was due and

write as best as I could. This likely led to subpar writing and did not allow me to fully display

my capabilities as a writer. This course has both forced me to write first drafts and, through the

coursework, made me appreciate their importance. I now make sure to budget time well ahead of

the deadline for my papers in order to write multiple drafts. I take to heart what Anne Lamott
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says in Shitty First Drafts, when she states, “The first draft is the child’s draft, where you let it all

pour out and then romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going to see it and that you can

shape it later.” I feel that this has helped me produce better writing and also minimize the stress

of writing. It is much easier to get all my ideas out in the first draft and then reorganize them

later, as opposed to trying to write a perfect essay in my first attempt. I have begun to use this

process in all of my classes and will continue throughout my writing career.

As I reflect on the work I did on my final portfolio, I feel proud of what I was able to do.

I chose to revise my Writing Project 2 and Writing Project 3 because I enjoyed those prompts the

most and feel that they are the best representation of my skills as a writer. In my revision

process, I found that my Writing Project 2 needed some major revisions in terms of style and

flow. Many of my sentences in the project I found to be convoluted and unclear, which I felt

hindered the flow of the writing as a whole. When revising, I made sure to change the sentence

structures of some of my sentences to make their meanings as clear as possible. I also made a

point to go through word choice to make sure everything was said in the clearest way possible.

To help with the flow of my essay, I revised introductory sentences of paragraphs as well as most

concluding sentences. In my original draft I do not think I did an adequate job in wrapping up the

thoughts in the paragraphs and connecting them back to my thesis. I feel that these revisions

made my project more clear and easier for the reader to understand my argument.

For Writing Project 3, I felt that I did not need as drastic of revisions as I did with

Writing Project 2. I was extremely happy with where my translation was and felt it was an

accurate representation of Mak’s findings, so I did not want to make major changes. I did,

however, clean up some grammatical errors in it, polish up some word choice, and add slight

details. An important detail I inserted was the insertion of the Bible verses that Henry is reading
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before and after his interaction with John. Before their interaction he is reading from John

Chapter 3, which is about Jesus and compassion, and after their interaction he is reading from

Matthew Chapter 14 which details the beheading of John the Baptist. I did this to show that

Henry is not as pure of a saint as I made him seem throughout the story, as he is obviously

imagining the John lying next to him being beheaded. In my reflection, I similarly felt that my

reflective essay did not need major revisions. There were some minor stylistic changes I made

throughout to improve the flow of the essay, most evident in many introductory sentences being

revised. I did however add a paragraph explaining why I choose the names John and Henry when

they seemingly conflicted with my attempts to stay true to Chinese culture and Mak’s article.

Based on your comments, I felt that this would be important for me to address in my revision. I

now feel that my reflective essay covers nearly all of the important details that factored into my

translation. Of all the writing assignments, Writing Project 3 was my favorite because it gave me

extreme creative freedom in the translation, and following my revisions I now feel that it is some

of the best writing I have done and displays my strengths as a writer.

With the coursework for this class now completed, I am sure that I will take the skills I

learned and transfer them to all of my writing. I know that I am a better writer now than I was ten

weeks ago and am excited to see further growth as I continue to apply what I learned in this

course to the rest of my academic experience at UCSB. I am extremely grateful that I was able

to take this course and I hope that others in the future will take as much out of it as I did.

Best,

Zach Jones
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Works Cited

Reid, Shelley E. “Ten Ways To Think About Writing: Metaphoric Musings for College Writing

Student”. Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, vol. 2, 2011

Dirk, Kerry. “Navigating Genres. 2010”. Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, vol. 2, 2011

Lammont, Anne. “Shitty First Drafts”. Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, vol. 2, 2011