Journal #10 Reflect on your writing. Has it improved? Where is it stronger? Weaker?

To be honest, I don't really like writing essays. It's one of the things that I hate doing. However, if I do have to write an essay, I want to make sure that it's a good one. It always surprises me though because when im writing an essay, I always think that it's bad, lousy or just... crap, but when I get my papers back, it has a good grade on it and a good comment from the teacher. So, I think that I have improved in my writing and that makes me happy. I think that I have a pretty good essay structure. If I like what I'm writing and I know what it is about, I would have a good introduction, thesis, supporting paragraphs and conclusion. The only thing I need to work on is to give more details and depth to my papers. I also need to work on transitioning from one paragraph to the next and keep the tenses together. I always mix my tenses up. I might start using past tense, then all of a sudden I'm using present tense or vise versa. But because I've learn my mistakes, every time I proofread, I always look out for those and correct my paper. I don't think that I have a problem with sentence structure, like grammar, comma splices or punctuations. Even though I don't like writing essays, I think that it's good because it makes me think and it feels great to be complimented on my hard work or even get corrected for my errors. There's always room for improvement and it helps me see the areas I need to work on.

Journal #9 Is peer group editing useful?

Yes, I agree that peer group editing is useful because you could get your peer's input on your paper. Your peers can give you advise. It may be on how to make your essay more convincing, how to make it flow throughout the whole thing or on your sentence structure. Your peers can correct your paper's flaws. It may be punctautions, words spelt wrong or grammar. Peer group editing is important because you need other people's point of view. Your essay might make sense to you, but the important thing is for the readers to make sense out of your essay. You have to make it so that the readers can fully understand the point you are making in your essay. Peer editing can make that part easy. You might get uncomfortable showing your essay to your peers, but its good to know what they think about it. Peer editing is not only for your peers to give you advise, but also for you to make the effort of looking through their papers as well. I admit that it's awkward showing my essay to my peers. However, it makes me feel good about myself when they correct me or compliment me for writing the essay well. It's all about learning and growing from it. You can never really learn unless you are corrected. It's good to see your mistakes. That way you can correct it and hand in a better essay to the teacher.