What I Learned In My Writing Process

I always learned in high school that an essay only consisted of an introduction, body, and conclusion. There was no room for creativity, subjunctive writing, or free-thinking. As my favorite YouTuber always says, “If you are doing what everyone else is doing, you are doing it wrong” (Neistat). Through writing various papers in this class, I have learned that my voice as a writer is not limited to the standard academic paper. My biggest opportunity to show my voice was through the peer editing process. I was able to revise my peer’s paper in order to help them with organization, Modern Language Association (MLA) format, and other areas they felt were weak in their own writing. Organization seemed to be a big area that my peer’s needed help with. To determine organization you must first determine your purpose for the writing. Think about what big
Next, you must determine how to display this idea to those reading your paper. Ask yourself who the audience is that you are writing in order to make sure you relate to them and keep their interest peaked throughout your paper. For example, if you have too many long sentences in a row they will likely dread reading through your paper if they are the common person. Those sentences ruin clarity in your paper. An easy way I learned in this class to check my clarity myself was reading back through my paper using the SEE process. The perfect way to figure out if you are coming across to your audience correctly is a trial run. No paper ever seems complete without a second pair of eyes, maybe even two or three. I would always encourage others to get a second look at their paper to make sure their audience will understand what they are trying to get across. These steps are also helpful for writing academic papers. Academic papers, on the other hand, involve not only an understanding