Reflection on my writing.

When writing an essay, I'm always sure to make an outline of ideas for my paper then I begin writing off of that. I decided that peer editing was extremely helpful in the process of writing. Has my writing improved? I would say yes because in the beginning I was somewhat saying my ideas over and over again and using too many run on sentences. Commas were always a problem for me too, I was putting them where they really aren't needed. I've learned in class how to fix these problems in my essay so to me, my essays have gotten much stronger and better since the beginning of my essay. I sometimes run out of things to say in essays. I think that is my weakness because then I just begin rambling about things that aren't even important or have anything to do with the topic. I want to be able to have a strong essay where I don't run out of things to say and I can have a well-written, not boring essay. Honestly, some of my essays get boring, once again from running out of ideas or details.

Peer Group Editing

I believe that peer group editing can be very helpful when writing essays because it gives your fellow students and chance to read something you have written and make adjustments. Sometimes it is easy having a person your age and level of knowledge read something that you have written because either that have written about the same topic or have experienced something that you are writing about. It is always good to have a second pair of eyes look over your paper and edit it because you may not have corrected everything in your paper. A second pair of eyes is always helpful and everyone can use it. It can also be helpful to the person reading the essays because they can read something in the essay they are reading and get other ideas, like thinking you like the way they organized their paper, maybe I should try that one time. I have been doing peer editing since I started writing essays and I always find it helpful because sometimes you might turn in a paper not completely edited and you may miss some fixes. Peer editing is what prevents this from happening, usually. You also have to be able to peer edit though. Because some people just read your essay and say, "oh its really good, you don't need any changes", when you really probably have something you can at least fix. But then there are other people that are very helpful when peer editing and write all of their thoughts in the margins, its not like they are criticizing your writing, just telling you what could be better. It's helpful for me to get a second pair of eyes to read my essays.