Oh these wonderful reflections! I simply love evaluating my own “improvement” and reminding myself of all those things I promised to do back in January! What fun!
Actually, all in all, I’ve been pretty happy with my essay writing this term. I was kind of afraid that I might slack off and start procrastinating as with other things. But surprisingly, I’ve managed to keep up my routine of starting and finishing early which has been really useful in giving myself enough time to develop my ideas.
As for my promises, I don’t know if I’ve fulfilled them – though I’ve certainly tried. A major focus has been on the “flow” of my essay from point to point and presenting information in a clear and logical sequence. I think I’ve addressed this issue by working on my thesis statement – making it precise and understandable – and the topic sentences (and concluding sentences) of my paragraphs. My aim was to make it so that the most important information was summed up adequately in just a few well-written lines. As a result, my paragraphs have also gotten much more concise, and hopefully less of a bother to read.
Also, I’ve been working really hard on keeping my discussion relevant to an overarching thesis, and linking my individual points back to it through single sentences near the ends of my paragraphs. My earlier essays really lacked this technique, which may explain why they seemed to miss the “bigger picture” argument. I feel that implementing this is something that has really aided the general effectiveness of my recent essays.
Finally, the last promise I made was to obtain more textual evidence in my essays and better use it to illustrate my ideas. It used to be that my textual evidence was quite skimpy and not always entirely related. But I feel I’ve stepped it up and really tried to find the perfect quotes to fit into my discussion.
Of course, each of these things can be further improved on, which will continue to be my goal until the end of the term. That, and being a faster reader. Because it seriously takes me forever to read books. I think I’m just too easily distracted.
Well… that’s that! I don’t feel too bad, I guess. I think I did improve to some extent.
There’s still two essays left to prove myself!
Wish me luck!