Dear Reader, At the beginning of the reader I felt like I couldn’t do much as a writer. I felt that I was a one-trick pony. When I wrote, my writing could be seen sufficient in only one aspect. But as the year has progressed, my single note has become a whole tune. I wasn’t that great at using similes and metaphors, my DIDLS were not the best, except for using detail (that was the single note, and even then it wasn’t that great). I didn’t use SOAPSTone to enhance my writing. I was almost writing blind. I had so direction, no tune; all I was was a single writer with one decent aspect in his writing. When I compared two of my Mode Essays, the Process Analysis and the Causal Analysis, I noticed a huge difference in my writing style. I wrote the Process Analysis during the first semester, when we hadn’t really learned much about style, and we were just getting around to using DIDLS in our writing. During the PA, I was also really informal in my writing, which is why this was the essay I had to make several edits to. So that it would reflect the style of writing that I use now. There is more detail in my writing and a better flow to make, which lets the reader make complete sense of what I am trying to achieve. The Causal Analysis was written during the second semester. It was one of the last pieces I wrote before the MGRP. The CA shows how well I use my sources so there is just enough outside information, and the rest of it is my own words. The CA also displayed a more formal tone, where my language was more professional and was clearer. The piece that I included from my MGRP was entitled “Alone in a Crowd.” When I wrote this piece, I kind of just let the thoughts flow out of my head, I wasn’t really thinking about what I wrote, and I just wanted to get it out on paper. It was very informal. The point was not to demonstrate that I had two different sides to me. But that is what I found out after letting it
out, there is a side of me that believes that only I can bring myself happiness, but another that believes that others can help me get there too. It was an important discovery because I realized there was a yin to my yang. The most recent example of me getting stuck while writing something was Prompt 1 of the Personal Statement. This prompt was about describing the world I come from and how that has shaped my dreams and goals. The reason I got stuck was not because I had a shortage of ideas, but because I had so many things I could have written about. And that is what ended up happening. I ended up going a little overboard on that prompt, and going into too much detail. So when it came time for me to revise the essay, I was stuck, because I didn’t know who or what I could take out of the essay so that it was concise and helped my purpose not crowd it. The way I got going on this was I cleared my head, and just wrote down the first things that came to my mind when I thought about the most influential things that came to mind. Since those came to my head immediately, I decided to stick with those. I brainstormed in order to get what was truly important for me to write. I have learned to just clear my head and write, so that everything becomes an informal write and I can put thought into it later. They say that it is easier to write more than enough, and then condense the work, then to write a little and then try to add detail. I have begun to believe in those words. My favorite essay would have to be the MGRP. It wouldn’t really be considered an essay, more like a collection of some of my best works. I enjoyed writing it because it made me happy, and I didn’t feel any stress while writing about it. After all, it was about happiness. How can one be down when writing essays on happiness; that’d be ironic. I didn’t feel any pressure that I had to write under certain requirements, I was given rather broad directions and I churned out the best work I could. That was the whole point, to write your best work and you would do well. I
don’t speak without experience of course; I ended up getting a 92% on my MGRP. Not bad for writing what was on my mind. The most useful strategy I learned this year was to write more than enough, because it’s easier to condense a long essay, then to expand a short one. Another important lesson in writing is to always have peers review your work. No matter how much they criticize your work, it will be the better for your paper. Give the reader something to criticize until there is nothing to criticize anymore. And the final thing I learned was to get help from the teacher, schedule a conference so that the teacher can also help you improve your writing. Right now I feel like an adult in their childhood room. I’m amazed at all the things I did back then as a reader, but I don’t plan on going back to any of it. I will continue to build on as a writer. I feel like I’m a better writer as a whole now. I use details better than I did before. But I have also expanded to use more DIDLS in my writing, and also include SOAPSTone in my writing. If I address those things in my piece, there will always be many different literary techniques in my works. I must however, continue to work on my analysis. I have never been the best analyzer, and I don’t plan on being it. But just like at the beginning of this year, when I wasn’t that great of a writer in terms of many aspects, I know that if I continue to work hard I can become a great analyzer as well. Sincerely, Zihad Amin