Ciavarella 1 Christopher Ciavarella Professor Lago ENG1100 December 9, 2013 Reflective Essay When I applied for college I was

required to write an essay expressing why I thought I deserved entrance into William Paterson University. It required one day of prewriting, two days of drafting, which led to spending the next day editing a final draft with my grandmother. I can honestly say it was the hardest I had worked on an essay, yet it was only a mere one page in length. This was the first experience I had writing at a college level. Before this, I thought I had decent writing skills. Now, at eighteen years old, I came to the realization that I have a lot of room to grow. Fortunately, the hard work I had put into my essay was recognized and I was accepted to William Paterson. In my first semester at William Paterson, I took a class, College Writing, which helped bring my weaknesses as well as my strengths to the surface of my writing style. This class opened my eyes to the complexity and hard work it requires to write a complete essay. Prior to this class, my time from prewrite to final draft took approximately one day, perhaps two. Now, prewriting to final draft would take sometimes up to a week. The new process required a prewrite, two drafts, and finally a final paper to be submitted. In only one semester the process helped my writing skills more than any other course had in the past. Drafting my essays allowed me to take a critical second look at my writing. During the drafting phase of essay two, we discussed how including personal accounts might help

make your papers more interesting. Taking this into account, I reviewed my essay. My writing was clear cut, informational, and what one might call complete, but it did lack personal connection and an interesting introduction. So, for the first time ever I decided to include a narrative of my own, making it one of my favorite essays. I wrote, It is nine oclock at night, the mug is near empty, too cold to finish, my brain is running on Folgers and a protein bar, and a blog post Im supposed to be reading streams past my eyes at an astounding rate. A constant barrage of text messages and Facebook notifications blast my headphones with bips and bops wondering, what trade Im making for fantasy football, what homework we have for College Writing class, and if I am or am not talking to Becca about Elijahs friends dog named Sammy Davis Junior Junior. I am particularly proud of this piece because it allowed me to sincerely express my feelings on the topic while providing a clear example of the conflict by explaining the bombardment of technology, all while keeping the reader interested by use of humor and exaggeration without straying too far from my argument topic. Not all of my essay drafts were my favorite. I found, as well as my professor, that I have a difficult time connecting my ideas together. While my ideas may relate to the essay topic, they dont create a stream of consciousness that the reader can follow with ease. A clear example of this struggle can be found in essay three where I wrote, Similar situations occur daily. In the political field, with the influence of many different peoples, all have now come to simply argue one point over another. In the online community, with people from vastly different places all coming to eventually share one hive mind opinion rather than the opinions of many. And simply within communities of friends, where prior to being involved with one another most likely did not share an identical opinion on a topic, but now once

Ciavarella 3 they have spent more time with one another now share the same ideas. Going too quickly from one example to the other I didnt allow the reader or myself to make a connection between the topic and the example. If I had taken time to explain the political example, it may have supported my argument much more strongly than the collection of loose unsupported ideas I provided. Perhaps if I had spent more time asking myself how each example helps my argument, I may have discovered this fact. Weaknesses, which are evident in my writing reflect my burst of enthusiasm to write down as many things that come to mind in a short span of time, which I then go back and attempt to relate to the topic a little while later. It also shows how I can be easily distracted while writing, causing me to lose my train of thought. When I go back to write my paper after being briefly distracted, and sometimes not as briefly as others, I have a slightly different perspective on the topic and there-by write just ever so differently than I was before. While I do make creative connections, use grammar correctly, and cite my work, there is still plenty of room for improvement. I need to work on my focus as well as my evidence support, and the processes weve come to be taught this semester hopefully will continue to help my writing.