In this course I learned a lot in terms of writing targeting the science community, and writing to inform people. The first essay I wrote for this class was the informative essay. I had a hard time gathering enough reliable sources from the CCNY database and using resources that were not google. For the informative piece I had to have no less than 3 sources from the CCNY database, that were peer reviewed and legit. I had trouble finding one that would support my thesis. Finding evidence that fully supports my thesis and claims is one of my biggest weaknesses, along with explaining the evidence I am able to find. I find it rather easy to form and articulate a firm thesis, I just can not expand my ideas and explaining my reasoning behind these ideas. Another weakness of mine is citing, I always end up missing something in my citations or forget to cite in text. Citing is definitely something that has improved since I began writing in this class, I used to rarely cite or cite wrong but now I have a sense of how to cite and when citing is necessary. A strength of mine is summarizing and paraphrasing, it is easy to condense paragraphs into sentences, especially to support my thesis. In all my years of writing my essays all required me to explain what I learned in order for my instructor to know I understood the material.

      My favorite piece is the informative essay, because I was able to write and research a topic I have been interested for a long time. My least favorite piece was the rhetorical analysis, I am not good at analyzing others work, and identifying the methods they used to present their argument. I should have allowed myself more time on this piece, I underestimated how much time it would take me to thoroughly analyze and finish.

       When writing a paper I would like people to understand the main idea of and not be lost or confused about any aspect of my paper. My writing is a reflection of my knowledge, if the reader isn’t able to understand the topic after reading my topic I failed as a writer, and it makes it seem like I was not sure on what I was writing. As a writer I want my reader to gain some insight on a topic they don’t know much about After the reader finishes reading my paper they should be able to have more knowledge and enjoy the topic. I want my writing to say that I did researched my topic and understand it fully.

       Writing in this course allowed me to realize writing is structured different depending on who the intended audience is, I used to just write summaries of things and prolong it for 3 pages or explain things for multiple pages. This course was much more than that, and it took time to get the paper to the standard it was intended to be. It was more than just summarizing things you read about. I now am able to realize when I have to do more than just summarize and explain what I just read. I am able to analyze articles and the authors reasoning behind certain words and which method they used to make sure their thesis was clear. I still need help in thoroughly analyzing and identifying authors different styles and methods. I also still need to improve my citation skills, I tend to in cite my sources wrong, or not provide the page number or even paragraph number.

    When I am writing I usually have to explain and talk about what I learned, which I never have any trouble doing. I talk about what I learned and answer any questions the assignment asks of me with evidence from the text I just read. For this course not only did I have to talk about what I learned i also had to take a second look and actually examine each part of the paper. In this course I mostly looked at labs, so I had to go through the methods section, the discussion section, limitation section, and every other section individually and identify the differences between other labs I have encountered. This was a lot different than what I was used to, I have never been exposed to so many labs, which was a challenge I faced during this course.

    This semester I was working 30 hours a week which took a lot of time away from what was supposed to be studying time and school time. Therefore I was not able to give my work the time it really needed, I was not able to rewrite or even edit my paper after it was done. My schedule only really allowed me to get what I needed to do done, and even then I found myself trying to finish papers at work on my break. My job definitely impacted my school work negatively. I wasn’t ever able to conference with my teacher if I had any questions, or even have time to visit the writing center.   I collaborated in class when I needed to, my peers gave me very helpful advice on my papers during peer review. The final collaborative project was the most I have ever collaborated with someone from class. We had a group chat and we even rented a room in the library to make sure our project was up to par.

       Working with other people in this course definitely helped me work harder, because not only would it impact my grade but my group members as well. It definitely made me appreciate the class a lot more, my partners always made sure we met the deadlines and had things done ahead of time so we had time to review our work. The group I was in not only helped me with any questions I had but they also did their part and beyond, and helped me improve my work a lot more.