Writer’s Statement

Making Good Writing Great

I’ve always loved writing essays that were more personal, those that required a first-person perspective and content about my own life. Unfortunately, most of the essays I wrote in high school were analytical ones, examining another author’s work. Yet when I got the opportunity to write personal essays, my writing would always be very stream-of-consciousness, never revised for things like concision or including a how/why explanation. Because I like writing personal essays, my writing in that style prior to this class was “good.” However, this class has taught how I can make the personal writing I love so much, higher quality and more readable — how to make it great.

The annotations on my major essay and shorter piece highlight several ways in which I’ve improved as a writer this semester. One thing I learned is the power of description, which is especially relevant to the Mediation on Place assignment, where juicy details set the scene well and make the reader want to read more. This semester I also pushed myself to be more honest in my writing. This comes not just in the form of choosing personal subject matters for my writing, but also in the inclusion of vulnerable feelings and emotions.  

I’ve also learned how to make my writing more clear for my reader. First, is the importance of concise writing. Both my Meditation on Place essay and my Freewrite were littered with unnecessary phrases and things that could be said in less words. Next, is the concept of writing to an audience, something I’ve never considered before. This manifested itself in several ways, such as using language that was casual yet honest, and incorporating sufficient amounts of context and explanations. This leads to my last improvement, which is the inclusion of the how/why aspect of the triangle in my writing. This made it so my audience could understand the “So What?” of my writing. In the past I wrote as if my readers could understand what I was thinking and how I was feeling because I got so lost in the writing process and it therefore made sense to me, but I’ve since learned that is not the case.

Although I’ve acquired these writing strategies while crafting personal essays, I can see how I can use them for more analytical or argumentative essays which I am bound to write in my college career. Most importantly though, I was truly able to get lost in my writing this semester. The works on my website demonstrate how I was able to do so in, hopefully, great writing.