Short Short Essay Reflection

After reviewing my essay on the short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” I now realize my main problem: my thesis needs to be worked on.  When I write papers, my biggest problem is the thesis since I never know how to phrase what I want to say and include the product of every one of my points that I am going to make throughout my paper in one sentence.  I feel that the thesis sentence of a paper is my achilles heel since that is the major problem I face.  Most of the points made throughout the paper are the facts that I have not linked many things back to my thesis.  What I feel that I should start doing is think of a temporary thesis to create my paper then go back and redo my thesis to fit the work as a whole.  If I start drilling myself on doing this then I feel as if I will be a much more strong and confident writer.  

Another problem I found was that I claimed throughout my paper that Connie is innocent yet I never provide any backup to this claim.  Many notes throughout the paper are that I am claiming that Connie has innocence when I have not yet shown the reader that she is innocent and backed it up with evidence.  If I had made a paragraph asserting Connie’s innocence, then all of my points would have been valid however since I provided no proof, then I seemed to be merely speculating rather than justifying.  By continuously inferring that Connie began with innocence, I weakened my argument because I was then shown to be inferring rather than truly knowing and enforcing the facts and supporting them with claims.

My last main problem seemed to be my “So What?” statement.  This problem actually leads back to my first problem of writing the thesis.  If my thesis covered the main idea of my paper, then my so what statements would have been much more defined and clear.  This proves that many of the key points in a paper create a domino effect.  For instance, if there is not a strong enough thesis, then the back-up points will not fit into the so what statements, which means the argument will then be either weak or invalid.  This fine balance of essay components will then help me move toward getting a higher grade on the next paper that I write.  I feel as though if I focus on meshing these components together into a simple yet strong set of claims, datas and warrants then I will become a much stronger AP writer.

After reading through my paper again and analyzing all of the comments made, I believe that I now understand my main weak points when it comes to writing college-level essays.  Though I am happy with my grade, I am always looking to improve myself and now feel as though I know what to work on a practice in order to receive a higher grade on the next essay.