Final Reflection

The fall semester is finally going to come to an end with finals week up ahead. Classes are over with, and I cannot say I will miss them all too much. It will be nice to have a bit more free time than we usually do. There will be a period without work and studying that needs to be taken care of, and that is what we have all been waiting for during the semester. Even with this semester behind us, there are a number of things I learned during the semester, especially from this class, PWR 340.
When I first came into this class, I had not taken a writing class for about 2 years, and even that class was sketchy. Upon entering this class, I learned about some of the problems I had with varying sentence structure. In order to be interesting, the structure has to be varied. Changing my sentence structure also meant making sure the subjects of my sentences were actually people or things. This was a problem which I had quite often. I also realized that I often wrote in an extremely boring manner, often only using one story throughout an entire piece of work. In longer pieces, this technique would have plagued my writing. My biggest problem was definitely with proofreading. I never realized how pivotal a role proofreading played in the writing process until this class. I never proofread before this class, and in order to succeed as a writer, I needed to change this aspect of my process. Each of these problems was brought to my attention through this class.
By the end of this semester, I feel like I had significantly brought about change in my writing. I made an effort to proofread my works regularly, usually after every page of work. If I wanted to be a successful writer, I knew I needed to make a number of drafts which would drastically change. During the proofreading process, I made sure to especially focus on the sentence structure I used in each paragraph. These two steps alone drastically improved my writing. Finally, I began to do more research and work in order to make my pieces more intriguing to the reader. Reading one 12 page story can be extremely boring, and thus I began to implement a variety of stories in my work. Each of these changes made my work much more interesting and easy to read, and the improvement became more and more relevant as the semester continued.
I do not know if I will ever take another writing class while I am enrolled in college, but I have definitely seen improvement in my writing because of this class. If I am ever again in a class which involves any type of writing,(sustained, creative nonfiction...etc) I will remember all that I have learned in this class, and it will surely help me in an effective manner.