Coming into my ENGL 21007, I would have considered myself an average writer. I would say my greatest weakness in writing is my tendency to write too little. I don’t like my writing to be too wordy, so I tend to reword sentences to make them as short as possible. This lead to me failing to meet the word count in certain assignments, such as the abstract in my Technical Description. I also feel that my tendency to write as little as possible as one of my strengths. This allows me to write simple and straight to the point, and not go on unrelated tangents in order to fluff up my paper. My favorite assignment was probably the memo. The memo allowed me to think of a creative solution to something that many students in CCNY likely faced. My least favorite assignment was the literary analysis. I personally messed up and wrote an analysis on the wrong article. I still needed to submit a draft of the correct article, so I had to write it up with very little preparation and time. The analysis also felt very disconnected from the rest of our assignments. Our other assignments had us brainstorming creative ways to solve a problem, such as the memo and the collaborative project. The literary analysis felt disconnected, and I feel like I wasn’t personally invested in it.

 

If I could improve one thing, I feel like it would be my time management. While time management isn’t necessarily a writing skill, it is a skill that greatly affects your writing. I would often procrastinate and do assignments the day before they were assigned. If I had better time management I feel like I would’ve started earlier, had more time to brainstorm, made an outline, etc., which would have lead to higher quality work. I feel like the writing in this class is not designed to say something about the writer. It is mostly technical writing, so most of the ideas being put forth are built upon the ideas of others. This is very apparent in the technical description, where we have to take a product that’s not ours and have to describe the parts and functions. I feel there’s very little room to say something about myself in such a task. 

 

This course taught me a lot about APA writing and citations. I feel like I’m more well-rounded as a writer now. Prior to ENGL 21007, I only had experience writing argumentative essays. The way I’ve been taught to write these essays was very formulaic, and the writing in ENGL 21007 was much different so it taught me how to break out of this formula.

 

As I said before, I feel that I procrastinate too much. I usually start my assignment 1-2 days before it is due. This results in me getting it done on time, but not as high-quality as I would like to be. What I do depends on the scale of the assignment, and how much time I have. If an assignment is worth a significant portion of my grade, and I have ample time, I like to make an outline of what I’ll be writing. If I am running low on time, I’ll usually go straight into writing. Having an outline of what I’ll be writing helps me keep my writing concise, and makes sure I address everything that I need to. 

 

I think I performed alright, but I definitely could’ve given more effort. I found myself submitting subpar work because I would rather get a low grade rather than no mark. Outside of the collaborative project, I didn’t collaborate with others. Outside of quick emails to clarify a question, I didn’t conference with my instructor, and I did not visit the Writing Center.