Upon entering Coe this fall, I realized that I would encounter challenges when writing papers for my first year seminar. I understood that becoming an accomplished writer would involve a great deal of time and effort. I feel that I embarked upon my college career with realistic expectations. During the past few months, I have remained open-minded while receiving literary criticism from others, and have included numerous suggestions in my revisions. This collection of my first papers, as a Coe student, shows my growth as a writer. It demonstrates my ability to use different resources, while incorporating my own ideas into my work.

I have learned a great deal from the papers that I have written while at Coe. I have learned that writing is a process, which involves thorough research, proper organization of ideas, analysis, and sufficient revising. It is crucial to use information from a variety of reliable sources. I have discovered that each paper needs a well-organized structure; this greatly helps the reader understand the topic being discussed. Papers that have weak organization are often difficult for readers to comprehend. Each sentence needs to be important. In order to avoid redundancy, sentences that have nearly identical meanings should be omitted.

As a first-year student, I believed that all papers in college were submitted in their final form. I was pleasantly surprised when I received my first paper back with suggestions. At first it was a little difficult to accept criticism from others, but now I openly accept this advice. This allows me to go back and rework sections of my papers, which has lead to my improvement as a writer. These comments have inspired me to better my writing skills and develop my own style of writing.

The manner that these two papers were written is quite dissimilar. The first paper, Selected Pages from the Diary of Amandine Courbet, was a creative paper. I was required to write about a serf during the 12^th century in France and include a specific amount of information relevant to the time period in the diary. I was allowed to create my own plot while incorporating facts and events that might have occurred during the 12^th century.

The second paper, Louis XIV, was an argumentative essay. I decided to persuade the reader that Louis XIV was a beneficial king. First, I summarized a few of the events that took place during his reign. Next, I presented the opinions that the opponents of Louis XIV would have and I discussed the negative events that occurred during his reign, in an unbiased manner. Lastly, I defended my position and attempted to persuade the reader to become a supporter of Louis XIV. I referred to many of the contributions that the reign of Louis XIV made for the people of France.

This paper has undergone extensive revising. My first draft was poorly organized. It was an acceptable research paper but did not appear to be in the correct format for an argumentative essay. I failed to remain neutral throughout the paper by including biased adjectives. This made my paper confusing and difficult for readers to follow. My sentence structure was short and choppy. In the revisions that followed, many improvements were made and the suggestions that were given were incorporated into the final draft of my Louis XIV paper.