Reflection

As I am finally completing my research paper, I reflect back on the beginning of the year and realize how much my writing has changed. I looked over my older blog posts and saw a trend in how my writing and view of papers in general developed throughout the semester. I feel as though my writing has significantly improved in terms of writing according to how this course expects me to write. I was stuck in the mindset of high school writing as I entered this course, looking for a strict structure for papers that entailed simply providing an array of support. I was never really required to write these types of papers in the past, therefore the introduction to this style from this course was extremely constructive for me. As the semester progressed, I transitioned into the habit of combining my supporting claims and sources into a way in which the comparisons help clarify my thesis. My views changed in the aspect of writing fluid, comparative papers as opposed to rigid, choppy ones without much analysis. The process of writing the final research paper was longer than I expected and I am relieved that I did not procrastinate too much throughout the process. I feel the earlier papers in the semester did a fair job of preparing me for the final research paper because I think that, at this point, I truly understand how to relate my sources to a broad idea while also supporting my claims and thesis.