1) I feel like, as I writer, my strong suits lie in presenting information and argument. I feel that I can effectively argue a given position and provide evidence for that position in a compelling way. However, my weakness tends to be in finding the right place to put this information, if that makes sense. I find myself having trouble with dialectic, moving from point A to point B in a natural way that does not sound awkward. To put it more simply, I believe I am good at presenting information, the issue lies in connecting each piece of information together in a natural way. In the end, it boils down to structure, be it the structure of the paper itself or just the structure of the transitions.

2) I feel like in my papers thus far, my strengths have manifested largely in the quality of information given. I feel like I have good ideas with my papers, and those really help me when formulating an argument. I feel like my weakness manifests in slightly more obscure ways, however. Although my ideas are all there, without the connective tissue, they tend to lack the “so what” factor, which hurts my thesis and overall makes it relatively difficult to move forward with papers. In that sense, my difficulties with structure manifest in my having to put more work into the “so what?”

3) In my current paper, I feel like my ideas are all there. It’s just a matter of tying them together with more evidence and better dialectic. I feel like a strategy that would help this is really nailing my thesis before I go into it. I have a tendency to have a bunch of pieces of information with loose connections serving as the thesis, but if I work on my unifying thesis first I think I’ll have a much better time.

Overall, I would say I have improved as a writer over the course of this year and I am feeling reasonably confident about my final assignment. I feel like I’ve been slowly letting go of my bad habit of starting out with somewhat half-baked theses, and because of this my papers are getting better.

As a writer, I think one of my greatest strengths is the confidence I have in my own voice, especially because I pick arguments that I am interested in. I genuinely write what I feel and that I communicate my thoughts effectively with my reader. I also have a strong vocabulary and a knack for grammar so I never really have to worry about that when I write. However, one of my weaknesses continues to be structure. As our wonderful Griffin has told me many times, I know how to build an essay on the sentence level. My main issue is that I struggle to make my ideas flow smoothly from one paragraph to another. I am also terrible at writing conclusions so my essays tend to end very boringly.

My strengths have manifested themselves in all my papers because I’ve gotten to write about topics that I thoroughly enjoy, like specific Greek myths or, in this case, a movie that I love. In each essay, I got to argue theses that I believed and I supported my points well. I know grammar and spelling isn’t a main point of the grade scheme, but trust me mine was always on point. My weaknesses also shined through because, as I said before, I have gotten plenty of criticism in terms of fixing the organization of my paragraphs and my conclusions tended to be pretty much summaries of my essays.

I feel like the paper I am currently writing is helping me to address my issues with structure because I am really going to work on organizing it in a way that makes it easy for the reader to understand my argument. I also talked with Griffin about what a conclusion should add to the paper so hopefully the end of this essay won’t be as terrible. In terms of my strengths, this essay is about a movie that I really enjoy talking about so I am having a great time learning and writing about it, and I feel like that always shows in someone’s writing.

At the beginning and end of most writing courses I’ve taken, I have been asked to think about my strengths and weaknesses as a writer, and every time my answer is almost identical. I suppose that means that I haven’t been improving, which would be a tough pill to swallow. Although my strengths and weaknesses remain largely the same, I do actually think I have developed on my writing throughout my first my first year at UCLA. I think some of my strengths as a writer include the fact that I have a decent enough vocabulary and grammatical skills to make my essays sound at least moderately interesting and professional. I think I am also usually pretty good at structuring my ideas into an argument that flows well throughout my papers. For my weaknesses, on the other hand, I have always had a pretty big confidence issue in my writing. This has often caused me to spend hours and hours on assignments that would usually take others thirty minutes. I have historically been over-critical of my work which causes me to waste obscene amounts of time writing my drafts. At UCLA, however, I have been able to speed up my typing process and push back the fear of not being good enough. Honestly this is probably mostly due to the breakneck pace of the quarter system and not an actual growth in confidence, but whatever.

I think the aforementioned strengths and weaknesses have been pretty plain to see throughout my writing process in this cluster as a whole. The whole confidence issue mostly remedied itself due to the all-nighters I was forced to pull in order to finish my essays first quarter. Other than that, I think my strengths have really shown in the grades and feedback I’ve received for all of my papers. Annotations seldom had anything to do with grammar, word choice, or structure. Most of my issues arose from the strength of my arguments or the variability of analytical depth across different paragraphs.

I definitely see this improvement continuing throughout the process of drafting the current essay, but it’s not as visible as it was the past two quarters as they were more writing-heavy. My first draft of this essay came with relative ease, MUCH quicker than anything I wrote in high school. I was honestly pretty astounded with the brevity of writing my first draft, so it led me to believe the only logical answer was that the draft was horrible. Though after receiving feedback, I was pleasantly surprised with how well it was received. After making some minor changes, I think I’ll have a pretty dang good essay. I never would have been able to say that about my own work in high school.

I feel that one of my strengths as a writer is my ability to gather evidence and structure an argument using that. I have always made clear arguments in my papers and that is present in this paper. One of my weaknesses as a writer has been taking that argument a step further or including the “so what?” in my paper. It has always been easy to lay out my point but I have struggled to include the reason why that point is important. This cluster has changed that for me and it has been great for my writing because now my analysis of the subject actually means something to the discussion as a whole as opposed to it being an argument in isolation. It has changed my view on academics entirely with each paper now being part of a universe of ideas about each subject. I also struggled to write in an entertaining manner prior to the cluster. I used to write barebones essays that made claims, backed them up, then summed it all up to make the argument. After having my papers torn apart in this class, I see them now as more arguments that should lead to a thought provoking discussion. I feel more comfortable arguing with myself instead of trying to make an impenetrable statement that would never be arguable or interesting. This paper addresses my weaknesses because I do allow for counterarguments in my paper and even encourage them. I suggest that a movie could be seen a different way and provide evidence to that as well. The paper ends up being a suggestion as to how the industry functions as a whole which is taking my argument a step further than my previous ones. To sum up the cluster as a whole, my writing has definitely improved but the road to get there looked similar to this

I think one of my strengths of a writer is that I am good at coming up with thesis statements. Thesis statements are the most important part of the essay, and I normally find it pretty easy to come up with my thesis statement. I am also really good of tieing my thesis into the rest of my paper. I try to make sure that every paragraph is related to the overall argument I am trying to make, and that I connect everything together so no part of my essay feels pointless. I would consider my weaknesses to be every technical aspect of writing lol. I have terrible grammar, the amount of typos and misspellings I have are numerous. My sentences always are way too complex, so when editing I have to try and figure out ways to reword what I am saying so it sounds better. I also feel that my vocabulary is more limited compared to my contemporaries.

I think my strengths and weaknesses have definitely manifested over the course of this term, especially through my final paper. Throughout all of the papers this year my theses have definitely been getting stronger, however I have not fixed my weaknesses at all. My grammar problems are just as numerous now as they were for the first paper in quarter 1.

In my first draft for this final paper, I was very happy with my thesis and the general direction of my paper, but naturally there is so much left for me to work on because my writing skills are slacking. I plan on focusing really hard when finishing up my final draft so I can get rid of my grammar mistakes, and help with the overall flow of my essay.  

Alex Foyt

GE 30

I could go on for years and years listing my strengths as a writer.  I have an impeccable sense for the proper flow of a paragraph, and craft sentences that delight the eye.  My vocabulary is deeper and wider than the Pacific ocean. I pull analogies and metaphors from the air as though I’m plucking fruit from the tree.  My major strength in writing is my overactive mind. Whether I want to or not, my subconscious continuously searches for and builds connections between ideas.  My greatest weakness, however, is that I have an over inflated ego as a writer and think I know everything. I got into an argument with my mom, a professional writer, about the use of the word “venerable” verses “venerated,” and we still fight about it to this day.  If anyone tries to correct me about anything, I will argue my stance until judgement day. This makes it harder for me to grow and improve as a writer.

My ability to see connections between ideas has been super helpful for writing essays this year.  With my final essay, some of the similarities I draw between Miyazaki and Chihiro are very obscure.  However, paired with my ability to argue any stance until the end of time, I do a good job of defending my random claims.  In terms of my weakness, I have more or less disregarded much of the professional critique I’ve been given and opted to write page long responses to my TAs explaining why their edits are wrong. That’s not a super productive practice.

For this final essay I’m actually internalizing and applying the advice you gave me, which isn’t something I really ever do.  I think that’s just because I genuinely agree with it, so I don’t know if that proves any actual growth on my part.

I think one of my strengths as a writer is research – I go really in depth to research my topic and make sure I have a comprehensive set of sources before I start to write. I’m good at finding relevant information and weaving it into my argument. This is important because my research skills give the paper a strong foundation and ensure that the argument is well-backed. For example, in this paper I made ~12 pages of notes before I even began writing, and I pulled quotes from articles, books, papers, and podcasts to support my argument. I’ve followed a similar process for all the previous papers I’ve written in the cluster, and I think researching so meticulously is what gives me confidence in my writing.

One weakness could be that my writing style is very succinct, because I don’t like belaboring a point or stretching one argument for too long. This isn’t always a weakness – there are times when concision is necessary. However, for college papers, especially longer ones, I’ve often found difficulty hitting the page count. There have been many times when I’ve had to go back and ‘pad’ my paper with extra sentences just to reach the minimum requirement. I think knowing how to expand on an argument is just as useful as knowing how to cut it short, and maybe I could benefit from more practice on this. For this paper, it isn’t too much of a problem because I’m just about at 6 pages. I think over the year, I’ve gotten better at being able to develop my arguments to meet the necessary word/page counts, without detracting from the quality of the paper.

My strengths as a writer include being able to effectively incorporate sources into my analysis, analyzing specific details in great depth, and proper grammar. My weaknesses as a writer include disorganization, unclear vision, and a lack of balance. My greatest strength, analyzing specific details in great depth, manifested in my papers in this cluster that required strong analysis of mythical elements. I am able to develop each of my arguments over a span of two to three paragraphs in order to fully display my understanding of the subject. My weaknesses were apparent in my papers this quarter. I had difficulty organizing my thoughts in an effective order that flowed nicely. In addition, some of my paragraphs were stronger than others, leading to a lack of balance. Some paragraphs were longer or shorter than the others. Conversely, the previously mentioned weaknesses could have lead to an unclear vision to the reader because the papers jumped from topic to topic. However in the paper I am currently working on, I have quickly recognized my weaknesses earlier on, allowing me to have more time to restructure my essay. On the other hand, I feel as though I am clinging to unproportionate paragraphs due to my attachment to my writing.

My major strength as a writer is my ability to talk in depth about things, but my major weakness as a writer also happens to be talking in depth about things. For example, in my paper, I spent a lot of time elaborating on why film in general is mythic. While it is certainly not a bad thing to be able to elaborate on this idea, speaking too much about core concepts that could be taken as given often leads to arguments being artificially lengthier than they ought to be. I really need to accept that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with writing concisely. Another one of my strengths (but again one of my weaknesses) is my ability to form connections with work I am doing in my other classes. For example, in one of my papers on the cult of Chairman Mao that I am writing, I have written on the connection between veneration of him and similar religious rhetoric used in Iron age Judah (Old Testament biblical literature). While it is certainly good when writing a paper on religious ideology in Maoism to include connections to other religions, the danger is that the argument will cease discussing the cult of Mao and instead focus solely on the comparisons between the Cult of Mao and ancient Israelite religion. So, on this I constantly have to watch myself. In my current paper, the way I address these is by constantly referring back to my thesis to ensure my work is entirely grounded in my argument, allowing for only minor deviations when analysis demands a wider discussion. As for making progress as a writer, I feel I have become far better at writing since college, and exponentially better since this quarter. There are certainly still some bad habits I have, as discussed previously, but overall, I feel I am able to get a corpus of data, delve into it both on a structural level that examines the big picture as well as on a microscopic level, analyzing every word for the nuances it conveys. In this way, I feel I have begun and am continuing to move from simply making an argument and reporting facts to synthesizing new information from my papers.

To Mr. Mundt,

Using a nationalist approach to Good Will Hunting would be the best way to advertise this movie, because the movie presents Robin Williams as a typical father figure that is prominent in American ideology. In the movie, orphan Will Hunting finds the father figure he never had in the unexpected form of his psychiatrist, Sean Maguire. In the film, the two characters are presented as parallels of each other. Compared to other characters of similar age, both Hunting and Maguire are characters that can be seen as failures by others of their same age. For example, Sean Maguire is seen by his colleague, Professor Lambeau, as not reaching his full potential after college. Similarly, Lambeau pushes Hunting to apply to jobs and positions he believes Will would succeed in, because he believes Hunting is not utilizing the full extent of his mental capacity in his current life.

By presenting these characters as parallels of each other and revealing Maguire as a father figure to Hunting, readers will be able to relate to the American archetype of family structure, particularly the patriarchal family order that characterizes the majority of American families.

Another reason why this particular approach would be successful is due to simple human nature and human desire to find connections in relation to their own life. Though many people may not have their own typical American father figures, they can either relate to one of the two stages in Will’s life: the stage where he lacks a father figure and the stage where he realizes he has gained one (the scene where he confides in Sean Maguire and the two embrace). This figure, either in its presence or absence, is relatable and relatability is a significant contributor to positive responses.

The third reason why a nationalist approach would appeal to audiences is due to the similarity in social standing between Will Hunting and Sean Maguire. Sean Maguire is presented as a role model for Will Hunting, as someone who can contradict the social standing boundaries that may fence certain social standings. Similarly, the working class origins of the two and their clear happiness and success that is portrayed at the end of the film supply a source of hope in terms of class mobility that viewers can relate to.

Best,

Madison Gil