My First Paper

The process of writing my first college level paper was a very intimidating task. Four pages seemed like an insurmountable task to me. I have never been a strong writer, and I have not written anything more than short business type emails in almost 15 years! I tend to have many thoughts scrambled in my head, but I have never been skilled at organizing them into coherent ideas for other people to understand.

I can't say I really had an established "process" while writing this paper. I just started typing and let the thoughts flow. I did make a few lists with bullet points that I wanted to include in my argument, but I am not sure that was helpful to me. Once I had all of my thoughts down, I proceeded to attempt to organize them in a more cohesive way.

I would consider the topic of the paper (differences in education) as something I have never contemplated before the assignment, but once I read the articles I realized I had some pretty strong opinions on the subject.  I chose to use Jean Anyon’s paper, as well as Mike Rowe and Daniel Denvir, for my comparisons. Those papers had several interesting aspects in my opinion. I was able to relate my own educational experiences to the topic, so it made it a little easier for me to come up with an idea for a thesis, and support my ideas.

 

Overall, I would say writing this paper was quite nerve-wracking for me, but I managed to get through it and I feel much better now that I have my first paper completed. Hopefully the next time I sit down to write, I will have a little more confidence in myself.