~Learning from Essay 1~

This first essay was a great personal learning experience for me in that I learned a couple new strategies for improving essays. The presentations that we made were helpful because as I was looking at how to explain things in my paper on a slide; I came to the realization that these explanations should be included in my paper as well to make it easier to understand. So now when revising future papers I can employ this strategy of pretending that I'm having to explain the content to someone else and then editing the explanations into my paper to help make connections for my reader. Another very helpful part of my revising process for this essay was meeting with the professor to look over my paper and discuss any problems or questions I had about certain parts. Not only did it give me several great ideas on how to improve my paper but I got an insight into how the professor reads the essays and what she looks at/for. I write best when I'm in comfortable clothes and usually in my bedroom sitting in on my bed or at my desk. I don't usually write at a specific time of day- just when I have time and it's quiet and hopefully when I'm wide-awake. This may sound strange but there's a specific type of mood that I have where I write best. Not necessarily a mood as in emotions, but just a kind of thoughtful mindset that is productive to my writing process. It also has to be really quiet so I can focus so I almost always have my door shut and a fan going to block everything out.