Salguero 1

Carolina Salguero
Professor Vana Derohanessian
English 114B
7 May 2014
Reflective Essay

As an English student who attended English 114A and 114B, I have learned to appreciate
my own writing along with my peers review on papers. Throughout this final semester of
English I have greatly sharpened my critical analysis skills. Instead of simply summarizing a
novel or answering the prompt I learned to ask why. In my portfolio I challenge myself to dig
into context as deeply as possible. Writing has always been one of my strengths, compared to
math or sciences but it was frightening to take that first step from high school writing to
University academic writing. In high school it was expressed to us that if an essay did not have
the classic five paragraphs it would not be able to call itself an essay. This type of five paragraph
form essay constraints students into becoming close minded, at least, thats how it felt for me.
The prompts based on my essays in my portfolio taught me to look at things in a more complex
matter. I learned to display an organized logical argument if needed. My essays are more precise,
along with scholarly research instead of the usual repetition used to take up space.
I feel that I have largely expanded my writing skills and vocabulary. What I learned
specifically from my professor of two semesters is that English is an ongoing process. She
always mentioned that a paper is never actually done. She has taught her class that once you
believe you have finished a specific prompt/essay, leave it alone for a week or two and go back
and look at it. There will be things like grammar, sentence flow and ideas that have to be
changed. I can prove this is true for all of my essays in my portfolio, specifically my second
Salguero 2

essay on 1984 by George Orwell. At the moment of writing this essay I couldnt seem to find a
thesis that could express my point of view on the novel, making it impossible to add a counter
argument. After two months of having written Essay #2 I reread my essay, the prompt and was
able to write a thesis that complied with my entire essay. I was able to create my counter
argument effortlessly.
My portfolio shows my extensive use on MLA format. This specific format is used when
properly formatting papers and is used universally. Its going to become very helpful for me
during my undergraduate and graduate years. Before my prompts in English 114 were delivered
to me, I had no clue that a paper could require such format. MLA format has a specific way of
citing its sources. I found this technique a bit difficult because of my unfamiliarity with it. Being
able to cite a source correctly and efficiently can be the border line between people actually
reading your essay and taking it as a joke. The citations to an essay should be based on scholarly
research in order to provide evidence to the thesis of your essay.
I like to think that the strength to my essay is my introduction. I feel as if Im fully
capable of introducing a certain novel with a great deal of scholarly research. Being able to grab
the readers attention is what I enjoy most about my essays. What I have to work on in the future
are my transitions, thesis, and overall review of my essays. My transitions can be little difficult
to follow, I tend to rant on the novels background research a lot. Transitioning from one
paragraph to another is one my difficulties. I always have a problem with creating a thesis on my
essays that I can prove with the correct amount of resources and at the same time be able to
argue against it in my counterargument. A way I can easy this difficulty is by doing essays ahead
of time and coming back to them with a fresh mindset. Rereading my essays once theyre done
is one of my biggest issues. After being done with an essay I tend to put it away.