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Ivan Vo
English 102
May 3, 2016
Reflection
I personally don’t like English classes, because I have always struggled with writing
essays. English will always be my second language, which makes it hard for me to fully explain
my ideas into words. I can barely do that when I am talking. However, during this semester, I
have notices my writing skills changing and improving.
My writing process seemed to change after every major assignment because of what I
learned while writing the assignments. In the beginning of the semester, for any writing
assignments, I would just sat down and wrote without any planning or thinking about the
outcome. The quote from Mark Twain best described what I was thinking when I had to write,
“the secret of getting ahead is getting started”. I thought that I could write about anything as long
as I was writing something to complete the assignment. However, there were problems with the
way I was thinking about writing. I had a lot of writer’s block because I didn’t think ahead and
only wrote about the first ideas that came to my mind. Most of the assignments I wrote, were
random and sometimes didn’t meet with the requirements.
Now that I have taken this course, I noticed some changes in my writing processes that
helped improve my writing skill. I have learned to make a plan before writing any assignments to
make sure that I meet the requirements. I think about different topics and ideas that are related to
the assignment I am working on. The biggest change in my writing process has to be that I am
creating detailed outline of the essay before I write. I have made really vague and unclear
outlines before when the class required it. The changes to my writing process happened when I

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had to write the the controversy analysis paper while was the second essay we have to write. It
was the longest and hardest essay I wrote with nine full pages and research. It was the first essay
I start to changes my writing process. The second essay taught me a lot about my writing skills
and style. This essay has taught me about researches and changes in my writing process. The
essay required facts from academic article to build the argument for the controversy. When
writing using the fact it become much easier. I seem I enjoy writing with facts and information
than making up something.
My writing style has changed since the beginning of the semester. My writing style now
can be described as having more structure and easier to understand. I don’t think that my writing
style has crystallized, because it is still changing depending on what I am writing. However, I am
certain that my writing style went from a confusing mess to a more organized meaningful piece
of work. I still notice that my essay still have some confusing ideas due to the lack of detail or
explanation. Reading my second essay over again, there were a lot of ideas that could be
removed or improved. The other thing I noticed is that I used a casual tone of voice in my essay,
because of my word choice and structure. I can improve upon those inconveniences with more
writing practices. However, I really need to work on grammar and writing a good introduction
paragraph. I can never write a good intro that explains the ideas I am talking about within the
essay. Grammar is just something I have to take special notice of when I’m writing.
This English 102 class has really helped to me to improve my writing skills. I know that I
won’t get many more chances of writing anything like this again. I really enjoyed being able to
share my ideas and learn about different ideas and beliefs within the class. I had a few frustrating
moments here and there, but overall I think it is a great class that I was able to be a part of.

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