Zackery Wallach

Professor Creaney

English 11000

December 9, 2019

Theory of Writing

One of the first things I was asked at the beginning of my english composition class was: What is the importance of writing? As I was trying to answer this question, I realized that it is a way to express yourself and convey your ideas. Throughout the course I worked on implementing this in what I write, and attempted to get rid of some bad habits that I picked up. Nonetheless, as someone who has always viewed writing as a chore, one semester wasn’t going to completely change my mind. With that being said, however, I would like to believe that since the start of the semester I have started to view writing in a more positive way. 

A bad habit I picked up through highschool was to simply write to answer the prompt and whatever the rubric was looking for. While this may have checked all of the boxes, it produced a boring essay lacking substance. This is evident in my source based essay, the first essay for the class. I set up the essay in such a way that it follows the same pattern. I gave a brief description of the author followed by a quote and an analysis. Each paragraph was similar to the last, and there is not much that is different other than the change in the rhetorical analysis. I found myself starting off sentences with: “The article first starts off…” and “The authors are…”. I realized that I had not included any of my opinions, or any type of voice. After submitting the essay and not doing as well as I hoped, I decided to try to take a different approach in my following essay. 

I noticed that my essays lacked my own opinions. I have always been hesitant to use “I” in my essays, something that many of my peers also struggled with. I was conditioned to believe that it would come across as an unprofessional take away from my overall message. In my inquiry based essay, I was discussing the effects an increase to the minimum wage would have on automation. In order to bring different parts of the essay together, and effectively analyse my research I would need to include my own opinion. In order to do so I included phrases such as “I didn’t consider the way”, “These findings are what convinced me” and “I began to reflect upon my own experiences”. This allowed me to showcase how my opinions have changed over the course of my studies, and also how I connected my research to my own experiences. After writing my inquiry based essay I realised how writing is a way to express yourself and your ideas. My essay would not have been as effective if I had not expressed myself and included my own opinion. 

Since the beginning of the semester, I feel that while not much may have changed, the way that I will view writing has definitely changed. Writing is an outlet that allows you to express yourself, and it has allowed me to view writing more positively. While I am sure that throughout the course of my time at college, I will write essays that check all the boxes and will please the professor, I know that to me, the way in which you can showcase yourself is in what you write. 

Work Cited

Wallach, Zackery. “Maintaining Financial Equitability in an Automated Society” 2019, City College of New York, New York. 

Wallach, Zackery. “What are The Effects of Raising The Minimum Wage?” 2019, City College of New York, New York. 

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