Writing a journal entry every week has been a new experience. This seminar is the first class in which I’ve written at a consistent rate, and looking back at my entries, I’ve realized certain patterns in my journals. Rereading my own writing was a bit painful, but it has allowed me to reflect on my writing process, improvement, and style. I’ve noticed that I use quotes less often and summarize instead, which has improved the overall quality and flow of my writing. My thoughts still tend to be a little scattered, though maintaining some form of structure relevant to the question posed. My journal entry paragraphs start out with a topic sentence, followed by details from the text, which is impacted by the note-taking I do while reading.
Note-taking is extremely useful to me. The act of physically writing something down helps me better understand what I am reading and how I interpret it. When assigned our readings, I usually fill up 3-4 pages full of notes, which I read over later and use to help me write my journal entry. Note-taking and journaling are very different but both aide in my understanding of whatever text I am reading. While note-taking can seemingly draw out and I find myself writing too many notes, length is not an issue when journaling. My completed journal entry is a compilation of my most important notes, and I can usually find a clear start and end point in my opinion piece or informative summary. I enjoy doing both note-taking and journaling, but journaling can be more time consuming because I am conscious that others may read it and that these entries will eventually be graded. For this reason, journaling somewhat feels like a less organic way of writing simply because I am not fully used to it, and because I am probably overthinking it a little. Like how I have developed techniques for note-taking, I know I will continue to improve on my journaling and I am excited to see how my style changes by the end of this semester.
