Looking back on my trimester, there are three things that I have greatly improved on: structure, word choice, and writing style. First of all, in my first post I think I had good categorizing, but maybe a little too much. The subheaders made the post seem too separated and prevented it from transforming into a whole piece of writing. Also, I didn’t include smooth transitions to get from a header to the next: this is displayed between the two sub-headers of “Margo’s Interaction” and “How Margo Enhances the Plot” in which I go from speaking of specific details to summarizing the whole book with no transition. Secondly is my word choice! Multiple uses of the phrase “This quote explains…” and too much syntax have been replaced by synonym use and the addition of comas and “ands”. I think this helped my writing flow and become natural, which takes me to my next point: my writing style has changed substantially. I looked back to see that my blog was more informational and detail oriented. I think about halfway through blogging I realized that you could find this information anywhere, which led to my replacing with more opinion on the facts. One way you could compare the two posts is by looking at the way I tell the readers how I felt about the writing. In my first post I wrote, “This characterization could be found as absolutely flawless, or just plain lazy.” I like this style, but I never really took a position: in my second post I made sure to clearly mention how I felt, exemplified by the quote “I really hated Tris, but I think that's a sign of good writing…”. My clear stance shows that I subconsciously understand the purpose of the blog further. I also found myself connecting back to what I previously mentioned in the introductory paragraph. For example, I linked back to my thoughts on her writing by using the phrase “As I mentioned above…” which helped the post become more interlocked and smooth. Overall, I think my writing has expanded into new areas which help me better understand the purpose of blogging while reading.
One thing I struggled with was the length of my posts. At first, when we got our blogging rubrics, I thought we had to have one post within each rubric category, which made my posts extremely long and thorough, which dampened my feelings about the book and simply set me onto the thought process that I had to prove my point with fact rather than with opinion. It made them more drawn out and not fun to read. Eventually I realized that opinions didn’t have to be proven with concrete evidence and my blog posts became more opinionated. A strength I had with blogging is that I enjoyed spreading my thoughts and even picking up interpretations that others had, which generally encouraged me to blog with quality. I didn’t meet my reading goal but I set it for the end of the year, so hopefully I can make it! I used Goodreads before this class so I’ve used it even more often now. I think I have improved by actually forming my thoughts into words because often times I have a ceasing thought that doesn’t mean anything to me in the next second because I didn’t have the motive to write it out. To conclude, I think my writing skills have definitely expanded in that I’m able to find words for what I’m trying to get across quite efficiently, especially about my opinions on books!
