Amreen Nasir

Professor Skelley

Writing for the Social Sciences

19 December

Dear Professor,

Now that this semester has come to an end, it is a great time to reflect on my growth as a writer over these past months. When it comes to writing, I consider myself decent, but I do have areas where I can improve. Throughout the semester, my writing has improved a generous amount. This is partly because of the goals I set for myself and having to write about a variety of topics in different styles. This has helped me explore my abilities as a writer and the feedback I have gotten from others is a guide for how I could be a better writer. This semester, I experienced growth in the way I write. From conducting interviews, making observations of places/ communities, I was exposed to a lot of new genres and mediums which gave me a broader perspective on what writing really is.

Through drafting, revision, and self-assessment, the writing process became so much easier. This has a lot to do with how things were broken down in this course. Everything was done one step at a time and that made it so much easier to organize thoughts and get work done. For instance, when we did our field site observation, we had set short-term goals that helped us with the final product. We did an exercise where we listed a bunch of ideas, we then submitted field notes, we did research, submitted an annotated bibliography, drafted, peer-reviewed, revised, reflected, etc. These were a lot of small steps that helped us tackle a very lengthy and intimidating assignment. Before this, I would try to do everything all at once which would make my work rushed and of lesser quality. In the future, if I have a major assignment such as the field observation, I know that breaking things down into small steps is a very efficient way to do this and it is such a stress reliever.

My favorite part of this class was observing Facebook groups to gather research for my field observation essay. I felt like a true social scientist. I was stepping out of my comfort zone so I could learn and educate through what I write afterward. Something that could have helped me more this semester was if I made appointments with the writing center because that could have been a useful resource for improving my writing especially my grammar and sentence structure if there were any issues regarding that.

Peer revision was a process that helped me a lot in this course. Reading/ critiquing other people’s work and getting feedback on my own work was an inspiration. It motivated me to write better and I was able to achieve better scores on my work because of revision. I wish I could have met you and my classmates in person this semester. It would have made a difference in the experience I had in this class. I had a positive experience in this class but seeing everyone face to face (with masks on) would be cool. I would not like the long commute back and forth that would have stressed me out but an in-person college experience is something I am curious about. Back to my writing habits, I could definitely improve on starting things last minute because I always stress myself out when it is not necessary. Also, if I finished things earlier and not right before they are due, I would have more free time which I struggled to find.

Something that was a challenge for me at the beginning of the semester was transitioning from summer break into the beginning of classes.  I slowly got back into my productive mindset as time went on. The expectations of this course were pretty clear and straightforward so I was able to follow accordingly. I learned new citation styles and I cited all kinds of sources for different topics. What I wanted out of this course was to learn new things and become a stronger, more efficient writer. I feel that I reached my goal because I am a better writer now than I was before. The writing assignment that meant the most to me this semester was the introduction letter. This was such a personal piece of writing and I loved the format of a letter because it felt more intimate. Now I have written to you both at the beginning and end of the semester, which makes everything feel complete.