Dear Dr. K,

It took a lot of hard work but I finally figured out what my biggest problem with writing is. I generalize and 1 don’t support or back up my ideas. I found myself asking the question why? when I was revising the papers. I often would make a statement without backing it up with either a source or experience. So in revising, I tried to proofread more and avoid oversimplifying and generalizing.

In revising Paper 2, I had a lot of work to do. I had many sentences that needed to be reworded or just taken out. My biggest problem was adding examples of lyrics to make the paper concrete. In revising it, I found that I needed to rewrite a whole paragraph and explain these, those, and this because I often start a sentence with on of those three words and the reader would have no idea who or what, I was talking about. I also tried to work on grammatical errors such as comma splices, fragments, and mis9

When revising Paper 4, I felt that the change needed to be made in my conclusion. When I wrote the paper, I felt that the sources would not be of use to me but with your help, I realized that if I used personal experiences the sources would help me support them. I didn’t have too many problems with revising this paper because I did not feel like there was too much wrong with it. I think that I made too many unnecessary proofreading mistakes. I feel that this paper is strong because it helped me to get my Paper 5 together as far as how I was going to use my sources.

I had fun revising my final research paper because I felt encouraged by your comments. The comments made me feel confident in my writing ability and pointed out my weakness in writing a refutation. Because I have never written a refutation before, I figured that it would be weak. When I went to the writing center they helped me find out what I wanted to say to refute what other people had to say. I needed to use my experiences, feelings, and opinions in the refutation the same way that I did in the rest of the paper. We both know that I worked very hard on this paper and I think that is the best one that I have ever written.

After writing my portfolio, I feel that I have become a stronger writer because I think that I now know how to direct my papers to an audience. I still feel that I am weak in transferring my thoughts onto the paper in a clear and coherent manner. However, now I understand that if I put myself into the paper, I write better because I am emotionally attached to it instead of writing superficially. I feel that the class itself has helped me understand my writing style more than I used to. I also thank you for helping me so much with my papers. With your comments that let me know exactly what needs to be done to my paper.

Sincerely,

Marge Simpson