Patrick Sayers

English 2010
Jim Beatty
8/5/16
Reflection
I went through high school and always felt I was a pretty good writer but after one
semester of college 10 years ago I dropped out. I think writing skill that when used weekly or
daily stays relatively sharped, and thoughts stay creative. Ive spent 10 years working jobs that
required little to no writing at all, and living a life where the longest pieces of writing I did were
thank you letters for gifts. It was amazing to sit down last semester and start writing papers again
and come to the realization that it really was an art, and a difficult one to put thoughts down onto
paper in an articulate, creative form, while at the same time sounding academic, intelligent and
persuasive. Not only did this class teach me many different techniques for persuasion or
argumentation, but also styles of writing, and how to analyze audience and situations to help me
choose a writing style. The style the class was carried out over the course of the semester really
helped me to get input from my fellow students as I wrote papers, and to get and respond to
feedback from Professor Beatty. To see critiques and feedback from the professor, and not just a
grade was a huge part of the learning process for me because it allowed me to edit and make
changes to my papers and also to plan changes in patterns and adapt my writing style of future
papers in this and other classes.
Writing three different papers over the course of the semester helped me to focus on
multiple types of writing, instead of the usual focus of a class paper which is answer the
question. We were allowed to pick a topic which interested us as students, which then forced us

to adapt that topic to three separate styles of writing as we moved through the semester. The class
was taught in a way that helped me to learn a much better way to structure papers, and take more
care to develop transitions, and link paragraphs from my body back to my intro and thesis. The
class review of our rough drafts allowed me to pick up on mistakes, and to get a good idea of
strengths and weakness of my works based on opinions of an audience of my peers. With that
input I was able to remove extraneous, and unnecessary information, and add more detail, or
explain more about important facts. All this before I even gave the paper in for the initial grade.
Once I did, and then received it back, it allowed me to see and make specific changes to each
paper, helping to make each of them more educational, powerful, and well written.
The first paper we wrote was a memoir, which after getting my graded paper back I
realized I hadnt put any real memories into. After expanding the introduction to expand on my
general thesis I went through the paper and added specific stories about ways soccer had changed
MY life. For example, the specific details in the end of body paragraph 2 about how it actually
could help improve or bring attention to childrens groups and other peoples lives the way it
had mine, were an update to the first draft. Again body paragraph 4 was another place where I
added a story about my own life, and ways attending soccer camp at a young age had a positive
impact and helped me make friends. Overall I tried to add a couple stories about myself, make
the story feel a bit more personal and to try to bring some of my interest and love for the sport
out in the paper and pass that on to the reader. The overall grade and feedback from both
Professor Beatty and my fellow students helped me to be more aware of the necessity to pass
feelings onto my readers.
The second paper was an evaluation which I wrote on the current state of economics of
the sport of soccer, with a focus on England and the U.S. after getting graded on the first paper, I

already know to work harder on passing on my passion to readers, but similar to detailed stories,
I failed to back up my thoughts and ideas with enough supporting data and evidence to fully
explain the situation to people who might not have the same understanding of soccer and its
history. I went through the paper and added specific details and explained reasons behind my
lines of thinking in body paragraph 1, 2,3,4 and 5. Helping to add specific names, and numbers
like in paragraph 1, places like in paragraph 2, and jobs like I did in 3 all will hopefully help to
back up my points. I also attempted to reword many of my closing statements of my body
paragraphs to work on transitions, and to help each paragraph relate more specifically to my
thesis. The feedback on both of these allowed me to really focus on aspects on my final paper, a
proposal, and its detail and structure.
Our final paper of the year was a proposal, I felt this was the easiest paper to include my
own passion for the topic, and after the grading of the first two, I already knew I needed to focus
on the inclusion of details. One thing Professor Beatty had talked a lot about during the semester
was paper organization and the amount structure could change the power of a document. I spent
a lot of time not just editing this piece for content but rearranging the structure of my body
paragraphs to try to make sure my final paragraph held my strongest, or most convincing point. It
was my strongest paper, but I still needed to add more details to support my arguments. I went
back through and tried to add specific details to support my arguments, without boring my
readers with too much information. In all three of my body paragraphs tried to makes the
benefits to people and the communities a bit clearer, and why soccer was the best way to get
those benefits.
The a reoccurring problem I had with every paper was balance. As a huge soccer fan I
assumed people has a certain amount of knowledge of supporting information, and also, I was

afraid to bore non soccer fans with tedious information. Luckily the feedback from by
classmates game me an idea of the state of mind of the general public, and then the grading style
and class structure allowed me to take the feedback on each of my three papers individually, but
then learn to apply them to my writing style, and strategy in many different type of situations.
Putting together this assignment for my E-Portfolio helped force me to reexamine not just my
papers but the feedback from Professor Beatty. This helped me to realize just how much I had
learned about writing, research, and all the steps between a rough draft and well written, well
thought out final paper. Revising and editing papers and putting together the E-Portfolio really
helped me to see just how beneficial this class was in honing my critical skills in all aspects of
writing, and just how many of those skills I used on a daily basis in other college classes.