Three Very Important Lessons

While in English 112, I have learned many valuable writing techniques - techniques that I will take with me to all future classes. Three of the most important techniques I have learned are as follows. First, I learned that even though using sources to support an argument in argumentative writing is important, making sure that there is also some of "you" in these essays is also important. I learned this lesson quite early in the course (during the writing process of my first essay), and the lesson has stayed with me. Second, I learned how to effectively draft introductions and conclusions. While I already had some experience in doing so in past writing, our textbook for the course showed me some other options that I may consider in future writings (e.g. beginning an introduction with a narrative and the minding the gap introduction, and showing readers what is new and answering the question "So what?" in the conclusion). Last, but certainly not least, I learned how to correctly cite sources both within my work and on the works cited page, especially online academic journal articles. This lesson, like the others mentioned here will be quite helpful in future classes especially when research papers are a regular part of course work.