Welcome

Fatima Elashry 

Self Assessment

12/10/2020

ENG 21003

          I think it is important to take a moment for any student who wishes to do their best in a class to assess their own performance to decide the place of success in their writing and how they can proceed to advance their writing. I wondered what I discovered this semester as I looked at my own work? My problem in writing since High school is my grammar mistakes and my essay organization. Therefore, what new things I learned this semester and what else should I learn to improve my writing? Something I also struggle a lot with is how to divide my paragraphs. I always get that comment where I need to make my paragraphs shorter because there are many ideas and information in one paragraph that makes it long

          During my semester in my English 21003 class with professor Joseph Boisever I learned a lot of new things. I learned how to manage my time in writing and how to write a good purposal. I also learned how to make my paper to be more scientific and how to include data and facts in your essay that makes it look professional. Moreover, I learned how to improve my citation. Although I learned citation many times before that class but I never understood what is the difference between the types of citation. In this course, I learned the different types of citation and how to use and make them manually. Also, I learned how to write a good topic sentence to start every paragraph in a professional way. 

          The first essay through the semester is the Technical Description. Throughout my first essay I got comments from my professor about my grammar mistakes and the division of my paragraphs. Technical description was the easiest essay through the course. It does not require much search and it all depends on your own knowledge with some research. My topic in the first essay was bicycle and to be honest I did not find it hard to write. We had to describe the mechanism or device that you picked and it should be scientific. In this paper it was level one to me in writing of sciences. After I finished I felt like I sounded more scientific in writing and I actually liked it. 

          The second essay was like a nightmare to me. It was like moving from level one to level five. I do not know if it was only me or was that the case with everyone. The second essay I had to redo it  and it was during midterm weeks. It was scientific controversy and my topic was abortion. The mistake I made was that it was supposed to be scientific and I did an argumentative essay. I think my brain was in another place writing it. After that I had to redo the whole essay and write a better one that is related to science. Therefore, I went from “Is abortion right and legal to do?” to “Is abortion safe or unsafe?” I can make a big difference here just from the topic, imagine how the essay would change. I did it again all over and I started to learn more science words. I also learned from this paper what is a good source to use in a scientific paper and what is not. After I finished this paper and got a higher grade than the first paper, I felt relieved and so happy because I felt like I really accomplished something that was really hard for my brain to accomplish. This was the most paper that helped me a lot and it was the reason that helped me in the coming assignment which is the research paper. I can say Thank You to this assignment in making a big difference in my writing skills and teaching me a lesson. My professor’s comments in this essay was that there are also grammar mistakes but less than the first assignment and that I need to label the graphs that I put at the end of my essay. Therefore, we can see in this assignment I did better than the first essay. 

          The third essay was a research paper. This assignment was the hardest for most people. In my case I did a lot of research paper before therefore, this was not the hardest for me. This assignment was the one that needed the most search, knowledge and work and that is why it was a group assignment. This essay needed the most work and it took the longest time. Although, every minute I spent writing in this essay was worth it. This was my highest score essay paper in the course. While writing this essay in my mind I always had the idea that should be the best and I should end this course with a high grade. Now looking at my essay score, I feel that I got my best writing skills on the last essay. This paper was fun to do because we share information and you get to communicate and share perspectives with your group members. Moreover, in this essay I applied what I learned from my professor which is how to make the paper look professional and be more scientific. We used a lot of data and facts to prove every sentence or information we mentioned in our essay, Which made our paper sound professional. In this paper me and my group members applied all my writing skills to get a gucci paper out and that is worth the time we spend. 

          These were the most important assignments through the course of English 21003 but that was that all we wrote through the semester. You really thought of it? No, the writing skills will never improve only from writing three assignments through the whole semester. We always had assignments every week in discussion posts. In my opinion and through my experience that was the most enjoyable and interesting through the whole semester. In discussion posts you always express your opinion and you get to communicate with your classmates and reply to their writing and they reply to your writing. The professor made it also more and more interesting by him joining and reply to some students writing asking them questions. The questions he asks you can see everyone replying. Therefore, you are the lucky student when he replies to your writing because you get a lot of feedback. One time I opened and I saw ten replies to my post for a moment I felt special. These were the most interesting assignments we get every week. I also liked that the class was not stressful like some of the other English classes.  

          One of the rewards of doing a self-evaluation of my own article is to become more conscious of how you are viewed as a writer by other individuals. I become more conscious of my strengths and my shortcomings about my style of writing. My strength was that I always tried my best to improve my writing skills and I always take the professor’s comments and feedback to my next assignment. Also, I am a hard worker even if I have so much work to do in other classes. I still make some time for my English class to get my work done in the way the professor wants and on time to improve my writing. Moreover, I am a multitasking and time manageable person. Therefore, I always do my work on time and as asked for. My weakness is that if no one gives me feedback and help on the assignment. I will never get it done even If I am going to fail.. Also, If I have a question I need someone to explain at least twice in order to get it. I can never teach myself. I always need someone to help and willing to help. I find this a weakness especially during the COVID-19 pandemic because most of the classes now are self-teaching. I am hoping that I will improve and tech myself by my own.