Gary Daughtry
English 1213
Professor Hammett
28 April 2023
Word Count: 587
Comparing “The Mess In Conceited Conception” and “Alfred Hitchcock: Epidemic Eureka!”
In Comp II I decided to make the focus of my research about the narcissism epidemic, I was inspired to do this because of the impact the epidemic has had on my life. In Pr. 1, I wrote about the narcissism epidemic, but my thesis was off as I failed to write primarily about possible solutions to mitigate its spread.. In Pr. 2 I wrote about what film director Alfred Hitchcock would think of the narcissism epidemic. In writing these two essays I learned valuable lessons about how to write college level essays. From these projects I learned how to craft a thesis driven paper which matches up with the assignment, and I learned to effectively use my sources along with making sure my works cited page fully matched up correctly with my essay.
Possibly the most important thing I learned in Comp II was how to keep focused on my thesis and being sure it matched with the assigned writing. Before, I used to have a thesis and the rest of the paper would go off in many different directions with maybe one weak thesis connection per paragraph.This is seen in my essay written for Project One titled "The Mess in Conceited Conception." In this paper, I begin my final body paragraph with the sentence, "What can be done to keep these people from having kids?" This is what the whole paper should have been about. Not wanting to make this mistake again, I studied the example essays to see how they focused their thesis statements, and followed their examples. I began Pr. 2’s essay with a strong thesis that layed out my plan for the paper. The goal was to show how Alfred Hitchcock would think that the narcissism epidemic is real, and I did just that. I learned how to keep a thesis consistent and about the topic at hand.
The second most important skill I learned from these projects in this class was simply to make sure my in text citations matched with my works cited. That may seem like a simple enough task to complete but it is something I messed up multiple times in Pr.1 and almost messed up in Pr.2. In Pr.1 I had two full citations in my Works Cited page that did not appear in the essay, this was because the removal of them had been missed in rewrites. For Pr.2, however this almost happened as well but before my submission of the paper I read through everything one final time with that in mind and found that I had done the same thing again, but this time I corrected the issue before it was too late.
Through learning how to write thesis driven essays with appropriate topicality, and learning to double check my weak points such as citations, I feel I will be able to continue in my higher education fully prepared to write on any topics I need to.
In conclusion, by learning how to write essays focused on a central idea and double-checking my weak points like citations, I am confident that I will be well-prepared to tackle any topics I encounter in my higher education. I've gained the necessary skills to construct well-supported arguments and address my areas for improvement, allowing me to approach various subjects with ease and produce thoughtful and convincing written pieces. With these valuable skills in my arsenal, I'm prepared to thrive academically and actively contribute to discussions in any field I choose to pursue.