Blog #6 - Crucible Essay Draft Reflection

When researching and writing my essay, I mostly had difficulties with procrastination, which is of course my own fault. I don't really know what to do about that. Besides that, my first issue was choosing what exactly I wanted to write about; I wasn't sure what there would be a lot to write about, and what I would be able to find a lot of support for. When researching, it was difficult to find reliable sources, and to know how to rephrase things in my own words. When revising, I didn't change much. I wasn't really sure what to add or take away. I still don't think my essay was all that great but I'm unsure how to make it better. Most of the time I think all formal essays sound cheesy, and the good ones phrase things in ways that I would never think of. So maybe I just need more practice?
I thought the pre-writing activities were useful. They helped a bit with my procrastinating habits. The activites kept me on task and also helped keep my thoughts organized. When it came to actually writing the essay they made it much easier.
I'm not very good at peer-editing. It's hard for me to find things in other peoples' writing that I think should be changed. As for my essay being peer-edited, I think it was helpful to see another person's opinion on it, and it helped me see the essay from someone else's perspective. However, to be honest, I didn't really take many of the suggestions. Not that they weren't good suggestions or anything, because they were, but I just didn't. I guess I felt that it was good enough for me already. But now when writing my final draft I will probably go back and use some of those suggestions.
Some strengths of my essay are that I feel like I approached the prompt in a different kind of way. And maybe that's not true, but it was a more interesting direction than what I was originally going to go with. However, I have trouble making everything flow nicely, making it sound professional, and also making it sound like I know what I'm talking about. I plan on focusing on why what I'm talking about is important, and thouroughly explaining things so the reader isn't asking "so what?" the whole time. I also need to find some more sources and get some more detail.

Blog #5, Prompt 3

"Don't hesitate or allow yourself to make excuses," is good advice by Chris McCandless given to Ron Franz. It's good advice that I, myself should probably take. People, including myself, hold ourselves back from both success and failure way too often.  Holding back to avoid failure can be a good thing sometimes, although when we fail we also learn. Holding back from success is a different story. I think we all do that for different reasons. Personally, I hold back because I'm afraid of what other people think. It's stupid and I wish I didn't care so much but deep down I know I do. Something I hold back in a lot is speaking out in class. In group discussions or if I think I know the answer to a teacher's question, I have a habit of just keeping it to myself. I think we're all afraid of failure and don't want each other to know if we're wrong. But by trying to avoid failure we kind of miss out on an opportunity to be successful. It's a never-ending cycle that really if you think about it doesn't make much sense.