Reflection on my Writing

The title of my blog is “La vie à l’encre”. This is French for “life in ink”. I did this because my blog was meant  to be about books and literature. I geared the blog posts toward an audience of what I would think to be people that enjoy reading. I tried to respond to them by giving them ideas on the different topics I chose, such as book censorship. Each blog post was about something different, so I can’t say that I had a thesis, other than trying to convey that books and reading are important. I demonstrate the ability to analyze in the blogs that I used sources for. I had to pick sources and use them to help prove my point, and this included analyzing their views and seeing how it helped my arguments. I feel that I did decently working with another’s work, as I cited their information and incorporated it into my paper while still giving my own ideas.

My research paper was title Morality: Morality in the Absence of Religion. With this paper I was attempting to show that not only those that are religious can be moral. My audience could be a wide range of people, from religious to non-religious. I responded to this with the fact that I tried to clearly define all terms that people may not have known, and I tried to provide clear cut arguments for my thesis statement. My thesis was that non-religious people can be more moral in most cases than religious people. It was defined in the introduction, and I tied each paragraph back to it in every way I could and also redefined it in the conclusion. I demonstrate my ability to analyze with the sources I used. I took their ideas, analyzed what they meant by certain things, and incorporated the things that worked into my essay to support my arguments. I feel that I did well using other’s work, as I clearly stated what ideas were mine and what ideas of theirs I was using to support the arguments.

Between the beginning of the semester and now, I feel that my writing has improved at least a little. I better understand how to write a proper paper, and it has gotten much easier to do so.  At the beginning I was okay with using MLA citations, such as in one of my blog posts, “Censoring and banning books is an issue for education and society in general. Education needs the ideas of books, as is stated by Kelly in her article “Censorship and Book Banning in America: Taking Stock.”” It took me a little longer to understand APA, and I attemped to use it to the best of my ability which is shown by my works cited in my research paper, “The Secular Web (2007). An Introduction to Atheism. Retrieved from http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mathew/intro.html”. This took me a little bit to understand, and I’m still unsure of it. My writing has improved simply because I understand better how to incorporate other’s ideas into my own writing to make my arguments stronger.