We had learned in class how to use information and how to make sure that information was relevant to the argument. I think in this artifact I did a good job to use relevant information to support my argument. My transitions and structure of essay was better in this example as well because I had planned what I would talk about and had the topics tie into each other. I also believe that I could have used stronger evidence, for example, I mention instances of wrongful convictions but if I had included specific cases, that would have strengthened my argument.

In order for me to improve my persuasive writing skills I believe I need to take more time into thinking out what I want to say before I say it. I find that I am coming up with what to say next as I'm writing the other thing. To have the foresight would strengthen my arguments and my writing.

During the project, we were tasked with creating a sense of place by describing what it feels like to be in a certain place. In the beginning, I struggled with describing the right details, I would describe the sidewalk too much when it didnt matter. I improved my selection of description by further analyzing the place I wanted to describe and figuring out what was important. For example, in my earlier copies, I would describe the houses in the background of the parking lot when that is not a very important part of the parking lot. I also did not make my writing very interesting, it was boring to read. I needed to use fewer filler words and try to improve my vocabulary to make it entertaining to read.

In order to improve my writing skills I would need to learn to prioritize and recognize the things important to the scene or room. I would develop this by going back to the place I was trying to describe and find what were the prominent feelings I had and what senses I could sense.

The assignment was to choose a song and analyze the lyrics and find where pathos, logos, and ethos was applied. This proved to be a challenging assignment for me that I struggled with. I think I struggled with my time management and left it for the last minute. This caused me not to look deep enough into what the project was asking me to do and only gave a surface-level analysis.

For two of the rhetoric analysis, I would not really go into actual examples from the song. Using examples was a key part that I was missing and weakened the overall strength of this piece. I also failed to apply my knowledge of pathos logos and ethos in an acceptable way. Most of the writing was too short and not very fleshed out. It was partly the fault of the song that made its intentions hard to decipher but I struggled to understand the meaning behind the song and also how it would connect to the pathos, logos, and ethos.

One thing I take away from this project is my time management skills. I found that my ending (Precis) was the weakest out of the sections, likely because I was almost finished with it and wanted it to be over. To avoid this in future assignments I will need to take more time and leave time for me to proof read it.

I spent more time reviewing and proof reading how the story flowed and how to dialoge sounded and found that it did sound a little bit forced or faked. My strategy to improve my dialoge was to try to speak it out loud and see how it would sound and also to see if it sounded like a normal human being. For this story it was set in ancient Athens so the language and way people spoke would be different than normal. So I also had to account for making it seem realistic to seem like it would be somthing somebody back then would say.

I belive that my strengths in writing is the storytelling and the building of worlds but not dialoge. However that is a key part of the writing process that is a key to success. 

This is a note I took during one of our lessons about how we should approach writing characters. This was in my mind while I was writing the Halloween short story and I tried to follow these guidelines in my writing. I realized that in my writing I make my characters seem perfect and like they cant make mistakes but that is what makes readers engaged in the story.

In past writing, I would not ever make my characters feel loss or sadness, probably because I did not want to write about losing. The final result of my Halloween story incorporates some of these tips but I think I could have done better with my characters and their dialogue.

In future writing, I will try to incorporate these tips into my character-making and also my dialogue writing. 

Considering the time frame was about 10 minutes I think I did pretty well. However, I would have wanted to do more to create a feeling in the reader. Reading it back I realize that I do not capture the feeling of each room as much as I would like too.

I think I could improve my descriptions by trying to figure out what makes a room or a thing give you a certain feeling when you experience it. By recognizing this you can try to replicate that feeling with descriptive words to try and strike an emotional response in the reader.

I think I failed to give the story weight or importance even though I had little time to write it. The story seems to be forced out and the details I chose to include about the story were not ideal. For example, in the part where I explain that they were in a sketchy part of the neighborhood, I think that it is unnecessary to add that they were in a sketchy neighborhood and also it does not add anything.

Moving forward I want to improve the storytelling and exposition in my story. I will need more practice to improve and also to look at examples of good dialogue. Also, I will need to further my understanding of my characters to influence what they say in a way that makes sense for them.