Gebretekle, Betselot
EN 101
Professor. Baldassano
Reflective Essay
Reflective Essay I have been Montgomery College student for two semesters, and throughout the semesters I have learned crucial aspects of reading, writing, and listening. I took noncredit English courses during those semesters. However, I knew where exactly I was headed, which was to get to EN 101. Finally I made it to EN 101 and decided to take it over the summer. During this semester, I learned various writing techniques and ways of siting my sources. I believe I made a progress during this semester on writing thesis statement, a well-supported and detailed paragraph, and a conclusion. During this short semester, I have written three essays, and in each essay I wrote a thesis, which were crucial for my writings. I learned how to associate information and paraphrase it into one sentence. The thesis statement grabs the reader’s attention and lets them know what they are expecting ahead. I learned about different thesis statements related with individual essays. This semester I pushed myself to extend my essay by covering each points that I made on thesis. This semester, I feel that my ability to write a thesis has gotten better compared to what I use to write before. In general, I can now create specific points out of an article and recognize cohesions with that of other articles. English 101 made it easier for me to articulate a well thought out thesis. The next step I learned upon this semester is, creating a well-developed paragraph supported by details. During this semester, I learned to summarize, paraphrase, and quote particular information from different articles. As I noted to myself, summarization and paraphrase are different from one another, but quite often they are grouped together. In EN 101 class, I learned that in order to summarize or paraphrase an article or any other source, main point must be discussed in a few brief sentences. The major difference between summarization and paraphrasing is that paraphrasing requires to be cited while summarizing gives an overview. On my previous essay, which was compare and contrast, quoting was a bit tricky for me and I tried to avoid it several times. I knew I was not good at it so I received lower grade. However, I can correct the same mistake by using paraphrase or summarization for my next essay. In general, during this semester I believe I made an improvement in all three elements of writing creating well-developed paragraph; summarizing, paraphrasing, and quotations. My body paragraph have gotten better because I acquire these skills. Even though it might seem