When we started the course in my Fall 2024 semester, I wasn’t very aware of how my writing was meaningful to the readers. Sure, I was writing texts or emails to my colleagues at work or my friends at school, and there was a purpose for what I was writing, a message to convey. However, I learned how to actively think about how to affect my readers through my writing through this course. We worked with the theme “Music of the 60s” throughout the semester; what we read and wrote about was all around this theme. As we read and learned about the artists and music of the 1960s, we grew our perception of the era, and in this course, we learned how to communicate to our readers about this perception through our writing.

 Throughout the course, we read many articles, news, and excerpts from many writers about the artists of the ’60s. We analyzed and discussed what the writers were trying to convey. These discussions made me realize that we must know our audience, which will give us the purpose of our writing. Otherwise, it will be all over the place, saying a lot of things but meaning nothing. This realization drastically changed my writing after my first peer review.

One of the most significant improvements I made was possible after reading through what I wrote at least once. In my paper about John and Ono’s intersections of art and activism, I used many quotations as references wherever I felt them relevant at first. After completing the entire essay, I went through it once and realized some of the references felt out of place or could be better with something else. I continued this several times, which took a lot of time. However, the process became easy after we learned to summarize each of our paragraphs, their connection to the essay, and the neighboring paragraphs. It was a time-saving method that I wish I had learned before.

Before starting my papers, I had a clear goal about what I wanted my readers to know. In my paper about John Lennon and Yoko Ono, I wanted everyone to know how they used their art in a non-violent way for the peace movement. For that, I had to discuss a little bit about their relationship’s history to show the energy between them. I also discussed the history of their events to show their relevance in their movement. This took my paper in a different direction, which I could have avoided by mentioning more pieces of evidence backing my thesis statement.

 This semester, I realized how connecting to people about your writing can significantly improve it. After every first draft of our major assignments, we had a peer review where I got honest opinions on how my papers were at first and what things could be changed to improve them. Especially after my critical analysis essay peer review, I had to make many changes to my essay, which made it far better than its original version. I wrote more clearly about the writer’s intention, I got to see an excerpt in a new light, and I learned better use of references in my writing so that the readers understand it.

The most helpful thing I learned this semester was to access the CCNY library database. It’s a vast database where you can quickly find the resources you want or wander around the links like you’re lost. I had to read a lot of past journals and articles for my paper on John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and during the process, I learned to use the tools through many trials and errors, but I think I got the hang of it now. Even if I couldn’t find something in the CCNY library database, I at least learned how to look for the resources in some other places online and access them. This skill will help me in my future endeavors when I need to write more research papers in my academic life.

Finally, we used the MLA citation format for our papers this semester, which I had heard of before but knew little about. After practicing a lot and learning from others how to use the format in my essays, it became very easy for me by the end of the semester to use references from various sources and cite them. I also learned a lot about multiple methods of using the resources and which methods are much appreciated by the readers through our peer reviews.

In the end, I have become more confident about my writing than before the semester. I will try to incorporate the skills that I learned this semester in my future writing, if possible, with much more improvement