Post-Mortem Reflection
The writing process elements I found most useful during this project include my conference with Professor Van Kley and specifically, chapters 2 and 3 of “Style”. Discussing my essay was extremely helpful in organizing each component of my essay. I also gained value from peer discussion when we reviewed peer workshops in class. By using my peers’ essays as examples, I was able to better understand the revised IMRD format and how it pertained in a more literary study. I also had a clear goal in mind of how to present my findings in a logical, organized manner. After conferencing with Professor Van Kley, I found it useful to edit my Results section first in order to understand my end goal before moving on to the Introduction. I liked the concept of writing transitional topic sentences and providing evidence as a way to outline the paper before actually writing it. In addition, after organizing my body paragraphs, I went back and used the “Style” rules to simplify and clarify my sentences, making sure to note a subject and verb for each sentence and include a wide variety of simple and complex sentence structure.