Writing has always been a task that I found tedious and dreadful. I did not enjoy writing like others do, even though it is a common task in college. I felt insecure about the way I write, feeling like I did not write well enough and needing improvement. However, this class has made me more confident about my writing, improving the way I write essays. Although we only worked on one topic we approached it from many different perspectives, like grant proposals, research papers even interviews. I achieved most of the course learning outcomes of this class when writing each essay.

For writing each assignment, we were required to have a draft. It was not until this class until I realized how useful a draft actually is. I found drafts to be useful because I noticed how different the draft is to the final with the help of the comments from my peers and professor. I used to be the type of person that would just write the whole essay and submit my first draft as the final. Not only did it improve my writing, but it also saved me so much time. Through peer editing, I was able to learn more revising and editing techniques that improved my essays.

For example, in my grant proposal essay, I learned how to use the correct verb tense that would fit in a sentence so it can make sense, because using different verb tenses in the same sentence is grammatically incorrect.

I engaged in the collaborative and social aspects of the writing process by participating in discussion board posts. In the beginning of the semester, we were constantly reading field studies and discussing them on Blackboard. On the Blackboard posts, we would write comments on each other’s posts discussing what was read that night. I really enjoyed that because I loved reading my classmates work and discussing it afterwards and hearing out everyone’s opinions.

Using sources was essential in writing my research proposal.  We were asked to use outside information such as articles and books to provide evidence and support my argument in the essay. I learned how to incorporate the outside information when arguing and explaining my point in the essay. In my first draft, I threw in random quotes without explaining how they support my thesis, and I did not even introduce the idea before writing the quote. I learned that whenever I write a quote from a source that supports my argument, I must first introduce the idea, then write the quote, then explain how this quote is evidence and supports my thesis.

This Writing for Social Sciences course has improved the way I write my essays and helped me to fulfill most of the course learning outcomes. Writing each assignment gave me more practice and experience in improving my future papers. I also learned how to write in different styles, according to what the task is demanding from me. The field study allowed me to step out of my comfort zone and do research on a subculture I was very curious about. In conclusion, this course helped me build confidence in my writing abilities when writing an essay, improving, enhancing, and strengthening the way I write in any style, which will definitely help me when I need to write essays and papers in future courses in my college career.

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