As someone who enjoys writing, I tend to want to spill out all of my ideas at once and write more and more about something I get excited about. While this approach allows me to provide everything that I want to convey to my reader, I find that I am rarely able to just get to the point. As it turns out, the solution, a one- page restriction, is fairly simple, but I had not thought of it until this class. When I first found out about the short essay format, I was terrified. I thought, how could I possibly write an essay in a single page? Ultimately, however, this format drastically improved my writing. By following the one- page guideline for the knowledge essays, I was able to stick to the point, packing as much into one page as I could in a concise and straightforward way. While I have still not perfected polishing my writing, as I tend to ramble, I found that these short essay assignments helped improve my writing in a profound way by forcing me to get rid of the fluff and just say what I need to say. The format of the I-search, the final paper, helped improve my writing, as well, through acquiring a better set of research skills—by annotating an analyzing each source carefully, I was able to become accustomed to finding and using a diverse set of relevant sources for my research. Ultimately, my experience in English 289H helped not only to improve my writing style but my research skills as well.
The following essays are part of a series centered upon the theme of 'knowledge:'
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