Morgan Charrette

Mrs. Wold

ERWC, Per. 5

17 March 2019

Scholarship Essay Reflection

Considering that the assignment I had chosen to revise was initially a timed write, my

rewrite was obviously much better because I was able to put in more time and forethought. I was

able to expand upon the ideas I had originally written down, and while I could have probably

went even more in-depth I decided to just keep to the gist of what I wanted to say. I definitely

took more liberties with my rewrite and took things from a more philosophical perspective than

what was probably expected, but I am glad to have taken the time to delve deeper into the ideas I

had as a sophomore and to make them even more complex. Even though I removed a lot of the

“examples” that I had in the first version, it was for the best because they were far too general

and flimsy in presentation. My vocabulary was already good then, but I also took the opportunity

this second time to be more formal in diction. The first version had too many filler sentences and

a lot of half-thoughts. There were a lot of sentences that could have been placed anywhere in the

essay and still would have made sense, which just means that it was a poor way of organizing on

my part. I need to focus more on quality instead of quantity. I can write a lot and can easily fill

up a page in a short amount of time, but often only half of it is meaningful or useful to the

overarching idea/thesis of my writing. My grasp of grammar is good and I take advantage of that,

but it means nothing when the content of my writing holds no value. I often tell myself that I
much more adept at creative writing, at telling stories and creating complex character and plots,

but I struggle when forced to write within a school-oriented mindset (i.e. persuasive essays,

analysis papers, etc.). Even research assignments (especially when the topic personally interests

me), are easier for me to write, and so I hope that I can improve this type of writing in the future.