Content Outline

I don't know how I feel about being almost done with my first year of college. I'm going to have to actually get my stuff together soon since now I'm not a little freshman who can frolic around campus without a care in the world. I'm going to miss that.

My Super Duper Amazing Outline:

• Intro
• Topic Sentence:
• Writing sucks, am I right?
• Background information:
• I've never been that good with writing. Ever since I was little I've always hated writing. I used to dread writing paragraphs in elementary school and book reports in middle school just about killed me. So you can imagine I almost rioted when I was placed in an AP composition and writing class in high school. Being brutally honest, I thought I wouldn't have to take English in college, I thought I was home-free of any more dreadful essays. You can imagine my horror when I found myself in an honors English course at UofA. However, I think I've finally come to terms with the fact that English will always be in my life. It's a love-hate relationship really.
• Thesis:
• I can actually stand English now after realizing the different voices and forms that writing can take place in.
• Body Paragraph 1: The Evolution of My Voice
• Main Claim: By learning how to incorporate my everyday voice into my projects I've learned to distance myself from the stuffy diction-ridden writing I so passionately dislike.
• Evidence: By being able to use everyday language in my blog posts and QRG, I was able to understand that writing doesn't always have to be so serious.
• Importance: This realization was so important for me to grow as a writer since being able to express myself is such an important quality for any kid in the process of becoming a young adult.
• Main Claim: I was able to understand that it's okay to be myself in my writing. I'm slowly learning that my writing self doesn't have to be different than my actual self.
• Evidence: At first I thought that being so casual in my blog posts was a bad thing, but I now realize that that was a stepping stone for me to try on different voices in order to find my own.
• Importance: By trying on different voices (relaxed, passionate, serious, and goofy) I was able to further refine my own personal writing voice and add depth and dimensions to it.
• Body Paragraph 2: The Evolution of My Adaptation
• Main Claim: I've only really experienced standard essays as a means of writing, so I was really unprepared to handle the different genres that were thrown around.
• Evidence:The QRG was most like an essay so I wasn't too thrown off with that, but the podcast was the most unfamiliar to me since I don't have a calm "NPR" voice and I didn't know how to adopt that kind of persona.
• Importance: By being forced into situations I didn't know how to handle (the "sink or swim" method), I was able to refine my skills to handle myself and my writing while under pressure. A great skill to have for the real world; since, you know, the real world is all about being under pressure. 
• Main Claim: I've realized that writing a script and producing a podcast or video essay are two completely different things.
• Evidence: When I wrote my script for both genres, I thought I was basically done and all I needed to do was record it. Wrong. There were so many factors I didn't account for until it was too late.
• Importance: I understand now that writing a script is only half of the process, the actual recording of the videos and podcasts are a whole different beast. Now, if I'm ever asked to make a video (very likely), I'll know more about the actual process work and what's required.
• Body Paragraph 3: The Evolution of My Time Management
• Main Claim: This is the biggest issue I've struggled with all year -- time management.
• Evidence: I literally wait until the last second to complete everything and every single time I always kick myself over it. My project 3 final is perfect proof of that. I missed the deadline by 10 minutes because I severely misjudged the amount of time it would take to edit the video. 
• Importance: Making the same mistake gets really old after a while and apparently I love to learn things the hard way.
• Main Claim: Since I love to procrastinate so much, I had to learn how to trick myself into doing my work on time to not get horrible grades or incompletes on assignments.
• Evidence: Since I know I like to wait to the last minute for blog posts and project deadlines, I would change the deadline to a day before in my calendar from the start and condition myself to believe the new deadline. 
• Importance: This helped my writing process and kept me somewhat on a decent timeline (still a little behind but some people never change am I right?).
• Conclusion
• Bigger picture:
• This class has shaped me so much as a writer since now I don't puke automatically when thinking about writing a paper. Progress right? I realize now that papers aren't as cut and dry as a lot of teachers and professors led me to believe. There are countless genre and genre conventions to choose from that I didn't even realize existed. For this information I'm grateful.
• Restated Thesis:
• Now that I understand how complex English is, I realize that there is literally English in everything and I can't escape it no matter how hard I try. But that also means that there are countless opportunities for me to become a better writer and hone my writing process.