How has your understanding of academic writing evolved since our course began?
Does the description of the transition from highschool to college writing presented in “What is Academic Writing” square with your own experience of this transition? In answering, refer to at least three specific examples from the text.
One thing I am definitely sure of is that academic writing in college is difficult. If I do not pay attention to the writing task and do not understand how to write a response that is acceptable, I will surely struggle. Writing tasks in this English class are certainly different than high school. To put it into perspective, the type of writing in our English college course was expected of me only when I had to write huge research papers back in high school. These papers were only written once or twice every year, starting from junior year. This is not possibly enough practice for me to understand how I should have to write in one or two years. It has definitely come to my attention, since the beginning of this course, that certain things are required in every writing task, which may not be explicitly stated. For instance, clarity, factual evidence (research) and analysis are needed. Surely, as I progress through this course, my understanding of academic writing will improve so that I can understand every writing task that is given to me.
As a freshman in college, not much of what I have learned from high school is different, instead most of what I previously learned just needs to be expanded upon. One thing that is completely different in high school from college is the use of ‘I’ in some writing assignments. Much of my high school teachers strongly advised students to avoid using “I” in any paper. So, heeding my teacher’s advice, I would always refrain from using “I” and instead try to replace it with “one” to represent a similar stance/idea. As it is written in “What is ‘Academic’ Writing?” most college writing can be done using “I.” Even though I still struggle to do this (aside from these blog responses), knowing that I can use this pronoun helps to alleviate stress concerning these issues. Aside from the issue mentioned above, most of the things I learned in high school only need to be further developed. For instance, the author of this writing understands that students in high school most commonly use Google for research. This is generally the case; however, as the author points out, “college will require you to search for and find more in-depth information” (Irvin). Each assignment given to the student has to be researched and the factual evidence given (if necessary) has to be credible. This may not be a particularly difficult skill to develop as I have had experience with establishing a basis for research skills. Another instance where certain skills I have learned in high school only need to be further improved, would be dealing with certain writing assignments. In high school I had experience with closed, semi-open, and sometimes open writing assignments. A majority of the time I would have to write closed writing assignments, such as “was the South justified in seceding from the Union” and such (Irvin). Perhaps teachers believed that this would be a good way in teaching students how to write proper essays? Since I am familiar with these types of writing tasks, I know the most difficult part of college writing assignments is over with: understanding the assignment.
Unsurprisingly, the transition from my high school English classes to a college level writing course has brought about more challenges. My first semester here at Baruch has taught me that academic writing forces you to do your own thinking, and pose your own arguments. Whether or not you succeed can be affected by only a matter of one sentence. In my government class, I didn’t explain a concept in a short, concise manner and it hurt my grade for the assignment. No longer are students spoon fed with black and white concepts or concrete, solid answers.
This experience is reflected exactly in the text. The author warns us very early on in his writing: “Don’t fool yourself that your professors’ writing assignments are asking for your opinion on the topic from just your experience. They want to see you apply and use these concepts in your writing.” By the time we are in college, we’re expected to be able to deploy writing techniques that prove our abilities to critically analyze and put forth our own ideas based on what we’ve read. This means that understanding our reading assignments is crucial. Otherwise, an open writing assignment will be extremely difficult. I remember struggling with writing essays from my AP European history course in high school, which was exactly that-an essay where deciding “both your writing topic and claim” was a requirement. Obviously, I managed to get through writing during those four years and saw approaches that were suggested in the text that I’ve actually used myself. The author reiterates how getting a perfectly polished first draft is a myth, and later on tells about how they brainstormed by “isolating parts of [the] analysis” and records his “thinking on scratch pieces of paper.” I did something very similar-I wrote down my thoughts and musings on paper and later on put them together into one cohesive piece. Even though college level writing is a bit more demanding than high school, it is a skill that I can always hone in on-especially during the next four years.
My understanding of academic writing has definitely changed since the start of the year. I find that writing assignments in this english class are much more conceptual than those that i did in my high school career. In high school, I found that papers were more of your opinion on a topic, or simply creative writing. While these are valuable assignments and good practice to improve your skills, there wasn’t much of a deep understanding required in order to complete the assignment. I find that now, you must really have a deep understanding of the topic in order to complete the assignment because otherwise you will receive a poor grade. True understanding is more important now than it ever has been.
The experience described in the piece “What Is Academic Writing?” is very similar to my personal experience thus far in college. Throughout the piece, the author emphasizes the importance of true understanding of what has been read by the student as well as displaying this understanding in your response – ” Writing the paper is never “just” the writing part. To be successful in this kind of writing, you must be completely aware of what the professor expects you to do and accomplish with that particular writing task.” (page 8) Taking heed of what the professor wants is incredibly important. In high school you could get away with a good grade as long as the essay was well written, even if it wasn’t on topic. In college however, this is not doable.
Since our English course has started my understanding of academic writing has definitely changed. I had the impression going into this class that I was going to be reading books then discussing/writing about them. Thankfully that wasn’t the case, writings in this course are about how the author uses a certain theme or concept and how well you understand that. You need to have an understanding of what we read in this class and then with that understanding relate to real life of other excerpts we have read in class. This is definitely a better way to teach students and for the first time i have actually had an interest in English class because i love having intellectual conversations after reading something not always writing about it.
My transition from high school writing to college writing wasn’t that big of a jump. I have always been taught in my high school english classes to write what is being asked of me. In the piece “What is Academic Writing?” the author talks about how starting college students have no clear idea of what they are doing when it comes to writing an essay. In no way am i a pro at writing essays but the key difference between college writing and high school writing is expand expand expand expand. You have to analyze what you read then put it on paper with now your own understanding. This allows the teacher to see if you truly analyzed and thought about what you read to avoid a regurgitation on paper. If you have a clear understanding of what is being asked of you when writing something and have a clear understanding of what you read then you should be pretty successful in academic or college writing.
For doing college writing for about a month, I do admit that it has been a huge struggle trying to adapt to writing the first paper and even in class writing. For being in AP English last year I thought I would be prepared to analyze texts at a college ready level, but the true challenge that arose was that we’ll be working with different non-fictional essays. All throughout last year I had mostly worked with non-fictional pieces such as Antigone and Hamlet, and it was not until around April that we actually worked with a prose (yet a majority of the prose was from a novel and realistic fiction). Aside from that many of the descriptions presented, especially the myths, do relate when trying to transition from highschool to college writing. The description that I first found very relatable was “Myth #7: Never use “I” “ because ever since middle school it seemed using “I” in any paper, it seemed to be a sin of some sort. When given the first paper I was extremely shocked to find out I was going to use it and lead me to write a first draft that was not coherent and informative as it should have been. Another myth that I related with was myth four “Some got it; I don’t – the genius fallacy”, and it actually made me think back to last year. When I complemented a girl in my class on her writing style and asked her how can I write better she replied in a blatantly monotone voice, “Yeah you’re writing style is really grade school-ish and garbage.” At that point I felt that I couldn’t improve, but when put into writer groups this year and having to read other peers papers I got a different feeling. These peers were very enthusiastic and friendly, and told me my writing style was so simplistic that it was easy to understand. That experience alone lead me to become a little bit more confident in my writing. A third relatable part of the reading was the description of a closed writing assignment. With having one to do in class everyday it made me more keen to the fact that I can’t help writing more than I need to, and still write even when time is closed (because I hate having something incomplete). Thus with knowing that the closed writing should be an analysis that’s concise and simple, I’ve learned I should try confining my thoughts before writing a whole bunch of words that may contradict each other.
From the beginning of this course my understanding of Academic writing has definitely progressed. I have never before worked on writing in such detail. I’ve realized over the course that writing is more than just content or text, writing is the style, themes, an figurative language used by the author. Every author has its own style and use their own ways to get ideas to the audience. In this class we investigate how authors use techniques to display their ideas. I rarely looked at writing from an investigative approach. I have also developed an understanding of presenting arguments and thesis. Also supporting your thesis with good evidence. My understanding of writing has greatly evolved over this semester.
My transition from high school to College has verily made a better writer. in high school I though the perfect essay was five paragraphs made up an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion. This however was disapproved just by writing the first assignment. As ” What is Academic writing?” states that this 5 paragraph essay is a big myth for students. Another myth that was disapproved was that in high school all of my teachers taught me to never use “I.” This is also a myth as the article states” much of college writing can be done in a semi-formal form…where it is ok to use I .” Another major part of my transition is on how to present arguments. For example in this class we have learned about the straw man fallacy, and how you can’t just set up the opposing side in a weak form, or incorrect form, just so your argument benefits from it. In Other words, you can’t present an argument set up to be defeated. In ” What is academic writing?” the author states how in high school an arguments purpose was to win and defeat the other side, but in college the purpose is more to “earn your audience’s consideration of your perspective.” The author also states the importance of backing up your main points. The transition depicted in ” What is academic Writing?” is very similar to mine. I have progressed as a writer, but its only the beginning, I have a long road ahead. In this transition many high school myths have been disapproved as stated in the article.
Please excuse my grammatical errors. I apologize.
In all honesty, I can’t tell if my academic writing has evolved since the course began unless i had something to compare it. I always felt that I wasn’t a good writer but even today I still don’t feel like I have the ability to capture the audience attention without boring them. In addition, I do feel that in the beginning I had a hard time with expressing my ideas in my writing but currently its not as bad as it was. Besides my writing I have learned that shitty first drafts are okay. That is doesn’t have to be the best first draft in the world, it is mainly used as way for jotting down your ideas; getting the outline of the essay. The only thing that really matters is the magic that happens after the first draft.
The transition from high school to college wasn’t an unbearable but it was definitely different. I think that the reason why is wasn’t unbearable was because of the fact that a lot of the my classes did require Myth #6 which is the idea of the 5 paragraphs. 5 paragraph essays is just a way to get an easy outline for the student. The intro, the conclusion and usually when using the 3 body paragraphs; the first 2 you talk about their differences and the last body paragraph you talk about why are they alike. To me, I feel as though this writing technique can go on and on for years because of how useful it is. One thing I feel like college has helped me with is the ability to stop writing the way speak. Although in a few cases you will see me have my tone of voice in my piece. I feel as though I am very sarcastic and sometimes I want my writing piece to reflect my sarcasm. When he mentioned that writing how you speak to get that tone across is depending on the punctuations as well as word choice, all I was thinking was “WOW” because it was so true. When the subtopic “Looking More Closely at the “Academic Writing” Situation” and I read the graph, I saw that it was what our professor has been asking us with some of the stories we read. Who is the writer’s audience? What is the message the writer is trying to convey? These question were just little questions we were asked for us to only apply it in our works later on. Its kind of like a fashion designer, they will see outfits that other people have, see what they liked about it or didn’t like about it and essentially apply it to their own line of clothing. When we apply this to writing its the same thing, we see how the author conveyed their message whether it was using an ongoing motif, structure or choice of words. Ask ourselves “what did we like about it?” and subconsciously we will apply it to our own writing.
My understanding of academic writing has evolved enormously; as a writer, I “forgive” myself more now. I don’t rush it through the process of writing. I don’t expect to produce perfect first drafts. I don’t expect to become a writer in no time. I acknowledge and appreciate the fact that writing is an art which takes time and practice to master.
Academic writing also requires lots of researching. I am not used to investigate and study scholarly journals from college online databases; and now is something I understand is of primary importance in college. The information we need to research has to be more in-depth than the one search engines like Google or Wikipedia offer.
The transition from highschool to college writing presented in “What is Academic Writing” does square with my own situation in college. My previous writing has come generally from my own experience. As I entered college though, I noticed how much more often I have been asked to write on unfamiliar topics; topics I could not relate with personally. And that has has improved my writing skills.
Another example of how the text “What is Academic Writing” squares with my experience in college touches on documenting sources. In highschool I honestly never put much attention on the fact that I had to distinguish the use of outside information used inside my text. Now that I am in college and I’m aware of the consequences plagiarism has on students, I am studying how to properly document external documents.
In highschool I wasn’t given many semi-open writing assignments. As I entered college though, semi-open writing assignments were of central importance in our English class. Being able to analyze, illustrate, discuss texts whilst determining our own claims, represented a challenge for me which has been producing nothing else but academic growth.
I feel as though my sense of academic writing, has increased immensely since the beginning of this course. I have started to analyze things more critically and ask significantly more questions. One question I’ve noticed myself continuously asking is the question of who wrote the piece that I am reading. Are they credible and at all biased? From this I’ve come to the understanding that no piece is perfect and without some sort of external influence. An example of this would be Hersh’s piece on Osama Bin Laden, he is an investigative journalist whose story has merit. Although he’s credited for being reliable and has actually exposed a government conspiracy, he is still a man trying to sell a paper and is going to publish things, even if they’re not 100% proven. An example of this would be his constant listing of nameless sources. I understand their identities must be protected but how much of what Hersh says can be taken as fact if we basically have no evidence. Even if his story is coherent.
My transition from high school writing to college writing is represented by “What is Academic Writing.” Specifically it is represented by the changing from a reader to a close reader, recognizing sources and reading more complex texts. As a close reader I have enhanced my ability to notice certain rhetoric, this includes pointing out metaphors and recurring writing strategies in a piece. I can analyze these to get a better sense of what the author is trying to show and understand writing on a deeper level. Recognizing sources is another skill I have acquired. Being able to question information and credibility is crucial to understanding what message a text is trying to convey, as well as the message that you yourself should choose to receive. Another skill I have improved on is the ability to notice repeating writing strategies and analyze them and the writer more closely. An example of this would be Rankine and her constant use of examples. This use of examples are made to show the benefits of her proposed strategy, which is to bring institutional racism to light and affect the lives of many. This is how my transition from a high school writer to a college writer has changed me so far.
My understanding of academic writing has completely evolved since this course began. In high school, my essays were just a list of facts or opinions in paragraph form. My essays didn’t have as much thought about my audience or my purpose. All my essays were structured in that five paragraph format, so my ideas were restricted. I was taught to rarely use the word “I” and to restrain from putting my opinions into an essay unless that was what the prompt was asking for. I feel like in high school, essays were just constructed based on a specific format like a topic sentence, three supporting details, and then a closing statement. However, in college there is more versatility when it come to writing. I am able to incorporate my thoughts and opinions into a paper. Also, when we write about various writing pieces, we are able to actually analyze and think about the deeper message of the author opposed to just writing down what the author says in our papers and not thinking about it from an analytical perspective.
The description of high school to college writing does fit with my own experience. According to Irvin, we tend to put unrealistic expectations on early first drafts. The author goes on to explain that no one really writes a perfect first draft. A good polished piece takes a process of revision. In high school, I always expected to have a good essay on the first try. When my teacher would give us a prompt to write about, I would just sit there and try to structure out the essay in paragraph format instead of writing out my ideas. Now in this course, especially after reading “Shitty First Drafts” I know it is unrealistic to get a perfect paper on the first try and all papers need to go through a revision process. Irvin also talks about the “five paragraph essay.” As I said earlier, I was always taught to structure my essay in five paragraphs. One paragraph for the introduction, three for the body, and one for the conclusion.In college this is not a structure that is used. With various prompts and tasks that are given you can’t even fit all of your arguments into just three body paragraphs. A third example Irvin talks about is using “I” in your papers. In some situations like writing a lab report you can’t use the word “I”, but he says most college writing is in a semi formal style allowing you to use “I”. Like I said earlier, using “I” was forbidden in high school essays. We were only supposed to talk about other people’s opinions not ours. Now. throughout this course, I have grown out of these “myths” presented by Irvin and now starting to really grasp the concepts of academic writing.
My understanding of academic writing has significantly evolved since the beginning of this course. At first I thought the task of writing an essay was just to answer the prompt given instead of analyzing what the professor expects to be turned in. As well I learn to look at my writing more closely, mostly in how I structure my essay , and if I am answering the prompt given. At first I used to just write extra information in my essay believing that it would make my essay sound better, but throughout this course I realize that it is not always about trying to fill up the pages but rather staying on track with your thesis. As well I learn that in revising your essay and editing your essay it doesn’t just mean to change just a few words here in there. I learn that it involves changing majority portion of your essay to make it answer and stick to your thesis that you have written.
The description of the transition from high school to college writing presented in “What is Academic Writing” does square with my own experience of this transition, because in high school I used to believe that an essay was 5 paragraphs and know that I am an college an essay is no longer seen to be only five paragraphs but rather it is based on the number of pages the professor ask for. In “what is Academic Writing” myth #7 on not using I. In high school my teacher use to tell me that we couldn’t use it in our writing , and now in college I learned that we could and that nothing was wrong with using first person in our writing. As well in myth #3 the perfect draft, in high school I used to believe that my first draft was the one I would turn in at the end and that all I had to do was just change a few sentences here and there. In this course we read an essay ” shitty first draft” I learned that the first draft is not always seen to be the only one that we will have to write, but a progress in which we have to write about two or three revision until your essay is the final copy. As well interpreting what the professor is asking you to write about is key in your academic writing because if you don’t know the question being asked you tend to not answer the prompt and not do well in your essay. In high school it was mostly free writing not really a task that you had boundaries that you had to be in. In college, different type of writings include close writing assignments, semi-open writing assignments, and open writing assignments. In high school the only writings that I was given was always open writing assignments mostly my opinions and backing up with information. What I have learn about academic writing is that although you may not be the best writer there is always room for improvement. As well that in academic writing one should be analytical about the prompt being asked , work on structuring your essay, and be open to new writing tasks.
Compared to high school, college writing is definitely more challenging and involves more of a thought process. In high school, the teacher would explicitly tell you how to structure your essay, where to put all the information, as well as give you most of the information needed to placed in the essay. My only job was to take all of this and write it all down in a coherent essay. This is no longer the case. In college, you are given assignments that ask for five or more pages filled with research or an analysis of other works. In high school, the most anyone wrote was three pages for an essay and that was even in my SUNY English course. Only once were we asked to write five pages in that class and that was a research project towards the end of the year. We were not really taught how to go about writing that much so it is a struggle to write five or six pages in college. From the one month in this course, my understanding of academic writing has evolved in that I am now asked to analyze a piece deeply, on the structure, tone, motifs, etc, and that it is no longer going to be just write a summary.
“What is Academic Writing” did a good job on describing the transition from high school into college. The description was very similar to my own experience with the transition. Irvin wrote about a myth that most of us have that hinders us from writing, which was the idea that a first draft has to be perfect. In high school first drafts were almost never required, so my final draft was usually my first. This gave me the idea that a first draft has to be perfect and this prevents me from actually ever starting to write. Since begin college, I have realized that this is not the case and that first drafts can be a lot more helpful if they are not perfect because they can give you an idea that you would not have thought of otherwise. Irvin also stated that college requires more that just writing an essay but for you to do some research for the essay or doing an analysis. This was also very rare in high school since most essays were just based on class notes or can be written with doing extensive research. I now need to really think about what the assignment is asking and do much more than I would have in high school in order to complete the task and get a good grade. For example, in order to write the papers in English I need to deeply analyze the stories. Irvin then discusses that in college assignments, summaries should no longer be written unless explicitly asked to do so. In high school, teachers would consistently tell us that the first thing you do is summarize the story. That is no longer acceptable and can actually get you a grade that you do not like. Now I have to make sure that I do not summarize the text in the essay when for most of my life that is exactly what all my teachers told me to do. Irvin talks about other requirements for academic writing in college that is very different from the academic writing in high school, which is why I say that the description of the transition is spot on.
Ever since I took this writing class, my understanding of academic writing has changed. During high school, I never had the opportunity to actually improve my writing skills or understand the essences of writing. Most of the time I just have to write 5 paragraphs about the topic that the teacher assigned to me, there was no strict format or rules that I have to follow beside good grammar, and most of the time, it doesn’t require critical thinking or analyzing. After I took this class, my impression on writing changed. I used to hate writing because of weak grammar foundation, I was always scared to write because I am afraid of the criticisms that I might get, and it stops me from becoming a better writer. But I realized that in college, grammar is not a big issue on writings, college writings require more critical thinking and analyzing the literary pieces that I read, it focuses more on my opinions rather than sticking with a certaining theme. College writing isn’t about writing summaries, it definitely require a lot more effort in thinking about literary pieces, understanding them, and write about it with my own understanding of the reading piece. This is the takeaway that I got from taking this course.
I can definitely apply myself into the description of the transition from high school to college writing presented in “What i Academic Writing”. The first description would be “Writers only start writing when they have everything figured out”. I would always want to fully prepare myself before I start writing, I would think about what examples or evidence I will be providing for the topic, and I will thinking about how I should structure the whole essay and how everything should go when I write. But I always end up having a messy essay, and frustrations.
The second description would be “Perfect first drafts”. I thought this description could be linked back to the first description, because I always wanted to perfect my first draft, I would think about a lot of stuff before I write, I will create the perfect essay in my head, then I will start actually writing. But I realized later on that there is no such thing as a perfect first draft, no matter how perfect I thought of my essay would be in advance, during the writing process, I would always forget something, or realizing some of the ideas that I had doesn’t actually make sense when I wrote it.
The last description would be “Good Grammar is good writing”. I definitely care a lot about this issue when I write my papers. Because of my poor grammar foundation, I would always doubt myself during the writing process, I would always ask myself questions such as is this actually make sense, or is there any grammar errors in the sentence that I just wrote. I don’t mean grammar is not important, but I think I stuck with it too much, I would spent so much time doubting myself instead of thinking of ideas and expressions for my essay, and most the time I would lose my train of thoughts while doubting my grammar mistakes.
There is definitely a lot of takeaways from the article “What is Academic Writing”. I learned a lot about writing after I began taking this course, I really appreciate all the things that I learned about writing. It help me have more confidence when I write, and gives me the courage to become a better writer. I will continue to improve both my writing skill and grammar skills as I write more in the future, and hoping that one day I can write just as a good as everyone else does.
Since starting college my understanding of academic writing has definitely improved. Before starting this college writing course I looked at academic writing as simply answering any prompted given while satisfying the word count. However now I understand that academic writing has far more to do with than simply answering any prompts a teacher or professor may give you. Part of academic writing has to do with understanding the topic of the essay instead of simply googling what you need to know. Also the content of your essay and whether your message gets through to your intended audience is more important than the word count.
In “What is Academic Writing” I found that the transition from high school to college writing description was in fact similar to my own experience. In the essay the author stated that in high school a close reading of the text was not necessary to write an essay while in college you need to critically read and understand the text. I agreed with that and I have found that in college, unlike high school, reading the text is almost as important as writing the essay. I also agreed with the author when he said that you need to understand the writing situation. In college understanding who you need to address as you write your essay is more important than I found it was in high school.
My understanding for academic writing has evolved as I transitioned from a high school English course to a college level English Class. I took AP English philosophy in my senior year of high school. The whole year my main focus for essays would be to write about the different philosophers and their different set of beliefs. In college, writing is not as easy as to simply write about and describe, it takes on more in depth research and understanding of what I read. There are more analyzing and examining the tone and style of an author to do in this English class. Another difference is the use of references in our writing. In high school I was simply asked to do research on Google then have the proper citations. In college however, the credentials of a source is as important as the citation.
Regarding to the question of does the description of the transition from high school to college writing presented in “What is Academic Writing” square with my own experience of this transition, my answer would be, certainly yes. When asked to write essays in high school, my immediate concern would be the need to write five paragraphs. “Other than the five paragraph formula I’d learned in high school, I had no idea what a paper should or could look like,” said the author in “What is Academic Writing.” In addition, the idea of free writing did not hit me until I attended college. I have never been asked to just write whatever to get my thoughts out on a paper in high school before whereas in college I was asked frequently to free write. The author mentioned in the article about having to write about random things for ten minutes as a way to warm up which I can relate. Lastly, whether it is writing for my English class or formulating a speech for my public speaking class in college, the two important aspects are interest and experience. My interest does not matter as much in high school than it does in college. The author stated the challenge one faces due to lack of experience or lack of interest. I am often told by my public speaking professor that if the topic I am talking about doesn’t even interest me, it will certainly not interest my audience.
My understanding of academic writing has certainly evolved since this course began. I entered the class thinking that academic writing is all technical with straight up facts and information. In high school, I was taught that my writing should not have the word “I” nor be personal. Everything must be presented a certain way withing the confines of your five paragraphs without any emotion. However, after spending time in this course, I learned that it is alright to use “I.” In fact, it’s alright to make your writing personal and add your own style because it will enhance your writing. I have also come to the understanding that academic writing requires much deeper thinking than I am used to and I need to step things up in order to create a good piece of academic writing.
The description of the transition from high school writing to college writing presented in “What is “Academic” Writing” certainly squares with my own experience of this transition. The essay discusses myths about writing, but the things that are myths are what I was taught in high school. One myth the essay mentions is the “paint by numbers” in which “some writers believe they must perform certain steps in a particular order to write ‘correctly’.” This myth applies to me because I learned a step by step process for writing essays since elementary school and I had to follow that process in order to get a good grade. But in college I realized that each writer has their own method that works for them and it isn’t necessary to follow a strict process. Another myth the essay mentions is the perfect first draft. In high school we were expected to have a perfect first draft because that was what helped us write our final draft, but now I know it’s okay to have a crappy first draft as long as it helps me turn out a final draft I am pleased with. Another myth that college helped me dispel is the never use “I” myth. After writing that first essay for this course, I realized it’s okay to use “I.”