What a journey this course has been.  Writing has never been my strong suit.  I have struggled with dyslexia and it can be difficult for me to get my thoughts on paper.  I feel the structure of the assignments helped me improve on that this quarter.  Editing my own work has proven difficult, I often don't see areas to improve upon myself, but respond well to other's edits.  The notations were my greatest help and gave me ideas of how to apply different suggestions to other works throughout the course. There are areas I still intend to work on.  I know that the body of my works need improvement.  I tend to start and end strong but configuring all the details into a paper and making sense of all of my thoughts is a struggle for me. As I continue to work on this during my college career, the drafting process is something I know I'll always use moving forward. The concept that it's ok to throw all my thoughts together in a first draft that may not be well structured but gives me something to work with is encouraging.  

I feel that my ability to put pen to paper and get my thoughts on the page is my strong suit.  Writer's block is never the issue but streamlining my thoughts can be difficult.  I am good at staying on the subject and expressing myself.  I tend to write in a steady stream of consciousness and go back to edit it afterwards.  The edits I received helped me with grammar and layout, my writing's greatest areas of weakness.  Now the goal is to work on creating those same edits with my own eye, from my own knowledge, instead of relying on other's.  

Outside of college I know that being able to communicate and express myself with quality writing will be important.  I feel I'll be taken more seriously and be able to impact my audience in any situation when my writing is clear, accurate and well worded.  Expanding my vocabulary and improving my grammar is a goal of mine.  I look forward to using my writing to explain, persuade and inspire my colleagues and clients in the workforce.

Ironically the paper I connected with the most was also the most challenging.  Our first major assignment was difficult because of my inexperience finding and siting resources and completing all of the research that had to be done, but I connected and enjoyed it because I got to choose the subject matter, one of my favorite music artists.  The other was easier, as the subject matter was me.  All of that data was easy to access in my own mind, my own experiences, but I didn't feel as connected.  I found it hard to get inspired writing about myself.  In both papers I got to reflect on my personal writing process and see my strengths and weaknesses more clearly.