Final Blog

Throughout this semester in English 210 I have learned many things.  With the ability to make our own decisions as to page length and number of sources I feel as though my writing has become more individualized, which helped me challenge myself to higher standards.  I feel that the grammar guides were the most helpful tool to educate me in areas I did not formally know.  The most helpful strategies for me were the lessons involving quotations, titles, appositives, and comma usage.  After implementing these particular grammar guide lessons I can see improvements of my writing overall.  With the use of a proper academic title, proper word choice, and brackets showing changes made within quotes I could see a more well-rounded, professional looking paper as the semester advanced.  The paper that was the easiest for me would have to have been the second paper of the semester.  It allowed us to analyze and interpret various aspects of a short story of choice by creating a research based argument.  I enjoyed this paper the most because it gave me the ability to choose which story, and which aspects within that story, to delve deeper and state my side of criticism.  It is much harder to create a paper when there are many limitations and requirements to follow because it also restricts the amount of topics that can be argued.  Throughout this semester I believe I've overcome a giant obstacle in the path to creating college-level papers.  The most beneficial lesson that contributed to the broadening of my knowledge on college writing would definitely have to be the grammar guide lesson pertaining to proper comma usage.  In the past I would normally place a comma anywhere that seemed to fit.  After being educated on the many instances and rules of comma usage I feel that the flow of my paper has improved immensely, resulting in various improvements of writing a college-level paper.