Essay Writing Reflection

Ideas and Content
My writing demonstrates appropriate ideas and content as I am able to take the prompt and direct my writing from this point onwards. For example, in my Julius Caesar essay, I determined driving forces of Brutus, clearly stating them at the beginning of each paragraph in order to build of those ideas. I would then describe these forces, where in the book they were evident and how they affected Brutus, but would only touch on these matters and didn’t further elaborate, and provide additional evidence to support my statements and reasoning.

Organization
My writing demonstrates appropriate organization as I am able to structure the paragraphs in a systematic fashion. For example, in my Julius Caesar essay, I divided the paragraphs into the introduction, different driving forces of Brutus, and then the conclusion. My writing also builds of each heading, so that everything is directly related. However I struggle with my transitions so that my writing has a smooth flow when read. By creating smoother transitions my writing is linked together therefore improving my organization and the value of the content in my writing. I could also achieve this by making a more solid, detailed and generally clearer plan, mainly focusing on content and order of content, before starting the essay. This is a main factor for me to focus on especially when establishing direction for timed essays such as the Julius Caesar essay.

Personal Growth
There is still a lot of room for improvement in my essays. With my Alchemist essay being over duration of time, and with my Julius Caesar being timed, I would weigh the two about equally. My writing shows an open window to possible ideas, but there is nothing past that window. Therefore, by putting my thoughts onto paper first and building on from there I aim to structure my writing more. Another factor I am focusing on is evidence. Rather than merely stating an idea and briefly covering it, I need to work on going in depth in order to show the reader the reasoning behind the content. I have however grown in terms of word choice, which seems to be one of the stronger parts of my writing, but I could grow more as a writer by incorporating these words into better structured and more detailed paragraphs so as to create a more significant meaning behind these words.

SLR Reflection
When crafting an essay, my aim is to communicate effectively in order to clearly convey my thoughts and ideas to the audience. Keeping this in mind, I try to organize my writing so that one can read it smoothly and make sense of it. I state the main ideas at the beginning of each paragraph and refer back to them in a concluding statement at the end to emphasize my points. This is also mostly true for both the introduction and conclusion of the essay. The area in which in need to improve on in communicating effectively when concerning my essays is when elaborating on an idea so that the audience is aware of my thoughts. Thus, besides referring back to ideas, but keeping in mind to not unnecessarily repeat them, I should also expand my ideas in order to reinforce meaning behind the words.