Rahman 1

Dylan Rahman
Professor Collins
ENGL 1302
12 May 2016
My Reflections of ENGL 1302
Before I attended this class, I was moderately educated on how to communicate through
academic writing. Last year I was enrolled in an advanced placement English course. Throughout
this class my teacher would correct my papers if the writing was not academic. For example, he
was the first instructor to inform me not to use first person when writing essays, and that I should
only use third person in academic writings. Other than this guideline, I was immensely
uninformed communicating through academic writing. I have gotten better at communicating by
improving my grammar, diction, and organization from the senioritis assignment and by
improving my documentation and organization from the first major essay.
The senioritis essay assigned during the beginning of the semester was the first
assignment that helped me interact through academic writing. Last semester in ENGL 1301 I
would get A's on my essays by putting minimal effort into my work. I was under the impression
that my essays were exceptional, but I was far from it. For example, contractions are considered
to be informal and not academic, and my senioritis essay contained grammatical errors such as
the use of contractions like "don't" or "isn't." Additionally, my word choice was flawed as well. I
would implement the use of elementary words such as "thing" and "many," and these words are
known as dead words that should not be used in academic writing. The composition of my essay

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was not up to standards too. In my header, I named the class "Comp 1-PHS 6" instead of "ENGL
1302," I also wrote the date as "January 7, 2016" instead of "7 January 2016." Furthermore, I
titled my essay "Senioritis" and this was not scholarly because all essays are required to contain a
unique title. This was the first assignment that allowed me to communicate through my academic
writing better.
Another assignment that helped me with communication was the rhetorical analysis
major essay because I improved my documentation and organization from this paper. I have
written a plethora amount of rhetorical essays prior to this one, so my content was noteworthy. I
had applied my knowledge that I gained from the senioritis essay into this major essay, and my
heading was correctly formatted and the title was unique. I also did not cite my resources
correctly from the senioritis essay, and this issue was resolved in my rhetorical analysis because I
correctly included in-text citations after my professor taught the class how do it. In this essay I
learned that one should refer to a speech as a living document and write about it in present tense.
Because of this rule, I changed a phrase in my first sentence from "Martin Luther King was a
famous civil rights activist" to "Martin Luther King is a famous civil rights activist." My
organization was improved from this essay because this is when I implemented the MEAL plan
in my work. This technique was utilized throughout the rhetorical essay which is a considerable
reason why this essay was successful. I am now able to better communicate through my
academic writing because of the aspects that were improved from the rhetorical analysis major
essay.
I have written many essays throughout this semester, and all of these assignments have
improved my writing in one way or another. Although all of the writing assignments helped me, I

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believe the senioritis essay and the rhetorical analysis essay assisted me the most at
communicating through academic writing because these essays collectively improved my
diction, grammar, organization, and documentation.