Final Blog

I see myself as an average writer. I believe that over the semester, I have improved my understanding about what quality writing looks like and the effort that is required for me to achieve the quality of writing that I am capable of. I discovered that my former writing process involved sitting down and forcing an entire paper out at once. Over the semester I learned that it takes multiple drafts to form a finished product and that sometimes, by leaving your work and coming back to it later, I can overcome those words, lines, or ideas in my writing that I am/was stuck on. I think this will be one of the most important things that I learned over the semester and that it will be one the things that will positively influence my future writing.
Work-shopping was an aspect of this class that helped me see ways that I could improve my own writing style. By looking at both the good and bad aspects of my classmates styles, I was able to add to and delete from my own style in order to improve my writing.
One of the most important specific changes in my writing style that I have made during the semester was to build a different view of what writing and organization of writing is. At first, my writing was the typical 5 paragraph essay with an opening, body, and conclusion. However, I learned that it is not always necessary to write this way, and that often times it is better to branch out and use you own style. I learned that a writer's style and the way he presents information can often times be a more effective means of expressing views, opinions, or evoking thought. For example in the "St. Sebastian Cow" and the Essay Video on youtube.com, messages were expressed in very unique ways that are still considered writing. The authors used their own style to create this writing, and their unique styles are big reasons that their writing is considered good.
As for my own style, I am not entirely sure I've found it yet. I think I am still searching to find my own unique style and it will take more writing to understand how I enjoy writing and write best. I believe this semester allowed me to experiment with styles and aspects of styles, an important step in finding my style. Examples of my changing style can be seen in my blogs. In Whiskers, one of my final blogs I tackle the idea of my dad's whiskers and their implications in my life. This is a subject I would never have tackled or thought could have been a subject at the beginning of the semester. This is evident in my early blog Apples where I talk about why apples are funny.