Personal Narrative: What I Learned In My Writing Class

Writing isn’t something that was ever stressed in my high school and since I am a computer science major, didn’t think that I would really be needing to write very often. But, this class has completely changed my perspective on writing, along with how I write. I have learned how to better plan my papers, create strong arguments, and how to create a good flow in the final product. Arguably the most important skill that I have learned is that it is essential to plan my essays. Prior to this class, I would just write all of my thoughts down without creating an outline. After that, I would just briefly proofread my essay and that was my final copy. Now, I make sure I spend a decent amount of time on an outline and make it incredibly detailed so that my thoughts are all in line with each other and overall, the essay makes sense. Then, I will read over my rough draft multiple times and have other people proofread it as well, just to make sure that it makes sense and is as clear as it can be. My papers went from taking less than an hour to write to taking 2 or 3 hours at the least.
Another important skill that I have learned is how to make strong arguments in my essays.
In all of the papers that I had written before this class, I just stated facts. I have learned that in order to truly have a strong argument, every claim that you are making has to be debatable so that people can have an opposing view on your topic but can then be convinced by the textual evidence that supports your claim. I have learned that textual evidence plays a much bigger role in an essay than I had previously thought. Prior to college, I would put very little textual evidence in my essays to support the claims that I was making. Now, I know that I should include at least one example of textual evidence for every claim that I am making because there is no better way to support an argument than with words that come right from the
source. Finally, I have learned that to have an essay that is as clear and as interesting as it can be, you need to be able to have variations in sentence structures along with being able to be specific on each claim that you are making. If you have the same sentence structures throughout each of your paragraphs, the reader will feel that they are reading the same thing over and over again and become less interested or bored with your essay. You need to have parallels between your sentences but the structures should definitely not be the same. Also, if you are too general on the claims that you are making, the reader won’t be able to grasp the full concept of your essay or be able to interpret it the way you wanted them too. Throughout the course of this class, I have learned that good and effective writing takes a lot more than I previously had thought. I learned that to be able to write a successful essay, you to need have some sort of planning technique such as an outline and a rough draft, you need to make sure that every claim that you make is specific and debatable, and you need to be able to have variations in sentence structures so that your readers will not become bored.