Reflective Essay: My First Draft

In “The Maker’s Eye,” the author, Donald Murray states that “when a draft is completed, the job of writing can begin”. He explained that the major difference between student and professional writers is that professionals have mastered their skills of reading, and their first draft is always a progression of drafts. They are constantly refining their work and sharpening their ideas. As for students, they think the work is pretty much done when the draft is completed, but because writing is a complex process, drafting is just the beginning. Personally, my drafts are revised many times because I want to make sure the structure required is being followed. I believe that every step of the process needs equal attention to make sure my thoughts and ideas are well-organized thru-out the paper, stating the purpose and style and I normally start with a thesis or introduction because it takes me the
I feel that my writing has improved since my English Composition I class that I took last February since then I have a lot of practice. It has helped broaden my vocabulary, improved my spelling and grammar, correct spelling, sentence organization and proofreading. I always have a hard time organizing my ideas and find myself clustering my thoughts before start writing. English is my second language and even though I feel very confident in speaking, reading and writing, depending on the subject, I experience often the “writer’s block”, so when that happens, I actually start drafting my ideas in Portuguese first, which I find that the ideas come faster to me, then I rewrite in English. As a result, revision and editing are probably the two most important steps for me, although all of them are equally important and cannot be neglected to ensure a well-written paper and a good