Caley Campbell
ENG 111
10-23-2012
Writing Another Paper
Writing papers is never someone’s favorite thing to do, especially when it comes to
writing a paper that makes you write in a way that you don’t like writing. When we were
assigned this assignment I was more than annoyed. I hate having citations in my papers,
especially a certain amount of citations. I don’t feel like it is my paper and I don’t feel like I am
making my point as well as I would like to. I struggle over citations every time we are assigned
to have them in my paper. I know how to use citations properly I just don’t like using them.
Citations are not my friend and they ruin my papers. However, it had to be done so I got straight
to business. Well maybe not straight to business.
Our topic was picking a subject about our school systems that we disagree with. I thought
a long time about what this topic could be. I chose to write about how hard it is for students to
find jobs after they graduate. This is a growing concern for a lot of students, so this would be
easier for research, or so I thought. I knew what I would talk about and how my body paragraphs
would look. I tried to mix it up a little bit and not go with the traditional five paragraphs, but at
the end of my paper that is how it ended up. When I first start a paper I just write whatever I feel
like writing. I write what is on my mind, and I don’t worry about anything else. Sometimes I get
carried away and start writing a little bit off topic and then I just throw it all away and start all
over again. With this paper I restarted it countless times because I kept going way off topic.
When I am finally done with writing the body of the paper I try to figure out where I could put a
citation or two to ruin my paper. I found some citations that I felt fit it pretty well from the
internet. The citations from the book I struggled with a lot. I did not like anything and I did not
feel that those essays related to my essay. I was really frustrated with this and I only saw it
hurting my essay rather than supporting it. If it were up to me I would have never put those
citations in my paper. Finally I check for all of my spelling and grammatical errors. This is my
rough draft, so I normally let one or two other people read my paper to double check my work.
Once I was satisfied I left well enough alone until a day before the paper is due, then I double
check everything again.
With this paper I really struggled with picking the right topic. I went through about four
different topics until I finally landed on my final one, which was why having a bachelor’s degree
may not be enough anymore to have a good job or even a job at all. I struggled so much because
I think to hard about these things. I wanted a topic that would blow everyone else out of the
water. I wanted a topic that was new and rich and would definitely catch my readers eye. The
problem is I thought so much about it that I didn’t leave myself much time to find all of my
citations and time to write my paper properly. I am a good writer, and I know I am, but when I
am told to pick my own topic related to something I want to have the best topic. The topic that I
chose was all right. I am still not 100% satisfied with it, but I still think that I did good with it.
In class you talked to us about not having the traditional paper with the introduction,
three body paragraphs, and then a conclusion. I tried to do that, but it felt all wrong and I didn’t
like it one bit so I went back to the way I was taught.
My ciations weren’t the best, but as I have stated before I hate the citations. I looked
online for some related topics looking to see if any of their input could be used in my paper. I
have a hard time doing something as simple as this. I read other articles and it makes me second
guess my paper, or I change topics all together because I didn’t like any of the articles I found.
My google skills, regulated citations, or finding regulated papers are not my strongest points.
Some people are great at browsing the web and being able to find exactly what they were
looking for. Me on the other hand, let’s just say the internet is not my friend. I had an even
harder time looking for citations from our book. I actually didn’t find any. I could not relate what
we read in class to my topic. That was one of the most frustrating moments. I liked my paper
without any of the citations and I did not feel as if they were helping my paper at all. I quit
multiple times on this paper because of that frustration. I may have a bit of a temper and it truly
showed while I was writing this paper.
I liked our topic, I did not like the citation part, and I am so happy that I am done with at
least this one paper that requires me to do this.