I struggled with the beginning of my essay because I didn’t know where to start. Before writing this assignment, we had read a previous student’s essay about investigating the role of Machismo culture on women, which seemed deeply personal to her identity. I was conflicted because I didn’t exactly know how Russia tied into my life. Although I am majoring in Russian, no particular part of my life contexts me to this country – it just fascinates me for some reason. But because this essay we had just read was so personal, I thought I had bitten off more than I could chew because I couldn’t necessarily form the same connections to my topic.

I have one larger comment on this essay and what I learned from it. These two lines depict me becoming more confident in my voice and finding my own style. One comment I received during my writing seminar was that my writing tends to “loosen up later in my essays and sound more personable.” Brigid said that this makes the writing more enjoyable for the readers. As a result, I’ve been trying to add more fluidity to my writing style while balancing more academic terms as well. I think these sentences exemplify me trying to do the former. Chick is a word I always use – to the point that my friends question how much I say it. I also think the next line, “talk about the switch-up of the century,” is pretty funny in general, but I also think it indicates themes that I bring up later. For example, it shows that I was already trying to bring levity to the situation because I knew I wouldn’t be able to fight her back, physically and socially. I think it also depicts how my mentality doesn’t immediately go to defending myself but, rather, trying to process the situation first. I’m proud because my writing seems to have a deeper connection to how I think and sound in real life. It makes it seem as if my writing is for others but for me as well. As a result, I enjoy writing about my subject more, which I think is apparent in my essays.

This passage is also from my intellectual history essay. My friends and I were at a party in the city, and one of my actions upset my friend, Sara. A bouncer took Sara at this event, so I texted our groupchat to have people look out for her. She thought this was inappropriate, so when we left the party, she berated me in the street and eventually slapped me. This paragraph depicts my immediate thought process after this occurred.

I like these three sentences because I think I was trying to find my own writer’s style at this point in the year. Before this class, I would always define my tone as more academic than personable – something that isn’t necessarily great. As Professor Zimmerman would describe it, my writing was severely “schoolish,” but that wasn’t something I realized was flawed. I had easily coaxed through academic writing in high school, so I figured this boring tone was expected of me in college too. I have come to understand, however, that a boring tone is, well, boring, and no one will be actively engaged in your writing if you write in such a manner. I know this sounds relatively straightforward, but it was genuinely something that I hadn’t been taught. So, as a result, I was on the search to find my tone throughout this class. I knew that in my tone, I wanted to sound like a real person, which sounds easy enough. The more complicated part came from how I view myself as an academic. In real life, I sound more relaxed than I do in writing, but my friends often joke around about how I say certain things. I often have heard comments like, “who even says stuff like that when you’re 18?” or “what did you even just say?” I wouldn’t be saying any remarkable things, but I guess I would say it more academically. This is a product of four years of debate in high school and being encouraged to sound as professional/intelligent as possible. Because of this, I want to convey that I am an academic but still a person, which I think these three sentences convey well. Phrases like “piqued my interest,” “attainable,” and “integrate Russian into my studies” could have been explained in much simpler terms, but that’s genuinely how I would have said it. Balancing these more academic words with talking about myself and my interests truly represented who I am, which helped create a distinguished tone for my essay.

So, I originally wrote my inquiry as a research paper. Here are the facts. Here are the sources. Here is how other people view it. And the essay was lackluster at best. I knew I wanted to write myself into the piece, but I wasn’t sure how. I think this continues my theme of “being concerned when I don’t have a concrete answer for things,” which I discussed in my previous excerpt. I was scared of topics that I didn’t know, and, in this scenario, it was why I wanted to talk about Russia. But I like this passage for a similar reason that I liked the previous excerpt from my personal inquiry. I was willing to address the fact that there are many things that I still don’t know, and I have to be content with that. I think it was bold of me to start my research inquiry with questions I fundamentally can’t answer now, even if I wanted to. And I think that made the essay seem far more personable than a normal research paper, which kind of made the narrative come alive.

This excerpt consists of the two opening paragraphs from my research inquiry essay. When deciding what to write about, I wanted to discuss my two academic interests: Environmental Studies and Russia. For my stacks exploration assignment, I had gone to the library section about Russian politics, and the place practically looked abandoned. Dust covered all the books, all check-out cards were blank, and the most recent book I could find was from 2007. Despite this, I was intrigued. It seemed like I was going to write about something (Russia) that many people at BC weren’t looking into, which was exciting.

For this paragraph, I really wanted to demonstrate that I had learned from our lecture on narrative arcs and that I knew how to build tension within a story. This paragraph was when I first truly talked about housing, so I wanted to set up this section correctly. The introduction sentence, “While this happened in the background, I was forced to watch an even more upsetting agenda in the foreground,” did this. I also think the next few sentences really demonstrate how serious she was when talking about her agenda. To many people, picking out your roommates for the next year is insane to do in October of your freshman year. And she was picking out our pillows? She had chosen our room number? I thought this added tension because it showed how entrenched I was with this problem. In a few paragraphs before this one, I explained how I felt trapped in this situation, and I think these details elaborate on that too. As a result, it showed a rising tension that would eventually climax, which was my goal when writing this.

One of the skills that I tried to practice in this essay was my implementation of quotations. In our previous major project (the research inquiry), I really struggled with implementing quotes while providing enough context. Although I understand that they are two completely different projects (one being slightly more academic than the other), I set the goal of effectively using quotes for this piece. I like how I set up this quote because it’s somewhat abrupt. I often add fluff with my quotes like “she said,” “he said,” or details about the setting in which it took place. I think the abruptness conveys the seriousness of the quote and depicts being taken aback. Surprise was definitely my reaction when I first heard this, so I think this style mirrored that. As a result, I think I successfully implemented and used a quote here, which fulfilled one of my main goals.

I initially struggled with these paragraphs. I knew I had to transition from the story of me getting slapped to talking about my housing concerns, but I wasn’t sure how. Other events that happened between that night and the present fueled my worry about housing, but I didn’t think I had enough time to explain them fully. I think my solution of just grazing them over in one or two sentences was an effective strategy. It hinted that there was more beneath the surface and that problems were still occurring, but they weren’t the major events.

I like this essay section because it proves that I can make effective, significant revisions. After telling the story of how Sara slapped me, I thought there wasn’t much more that I could add. I ended the essay by adding a pretty unclear, abstract critique of what I should have learned from the situation and what I was planning on doing in the future. It was a weak section of my essay, and Professor Zimmerman called me out. He asked me what was currently happening with my “friendship” with Sara, and I explained that I was currently conflicted about housing for next year. Sara wanted us all to live together in an eight-man, and she was very candid in wanting me to be with her. Professor Zimmerman advised me that internal struggle should be the next section of my essay, not an abstract section. As a result, I think this entire section and the rest of the essay is a sign that I can make effective, significant revisions. I was able to take feedback, work with it, and make the essay better because of it.

These paragraphs come from my intellectual history essay, one of my favorite works. I wrote this section towards the middle/end of my essay, and it acted as a transition for my piece. Before this, I had outlined one of my most defining college moments: when my friend, Sara, got drunk and slapped me at a party in the city. I also explained the aftermath of this event, where Sara wanted to talk to me, and how I left our discussion feeling worse and worse about the situation. I felt a lot of emotions like frustration and confusion, but I said nothing to maintain my friend group.

I really struggled with the last few sentences of this paragraph. I was conflicted because I still had questions at the end of my essay. I wanted to express what I had learned and what conclusion I had come to, but I still needed clarification on many things. I wasn’t sure what to write because I wasn’t sure what I had even thought myself. I wrote these questions here as a way to express my confusion still. I wrote so many endings to this paragraph that it probably took two hours. I was struggling because I realized I didn’t have a conclusion to this story yet, which was scary. I realized that it is okay to have questions still in an essay, and not everything has to conclude perfectly. Adding the questions conveyed how I truly felt, which was my main goal with this paragraph.

I like this last paragraph because it shows how I’ve learned to reflect on feedback. This essay was the work that I submitted to class for my writing seminar. Before writing this piece, I ended the essay abruptly with something like, “He’s just a simple hippo anyways.” To be transparent, I did not intend to finish my essay like this, but I was stuck. I was hoping the class could provide insight on how I should end my essay, but to my surprise, the class liked the ending. I was initially conflicted because I felt like the essay needed more, both in meaning and reflection. Despite this, I appreciated the feedback because it made me truly reflect on what I wanted to end on. Something that reassured me, however, was meeting with Professor Zimmerman during office hours/writing conferences. He agreed that the ending seemed too quick and that there were larger questions throughout the essay that I should try to answer in the end. As a result, I tried to write this more reflective paragraph at the end, which I thought tied the essay together nicely.

I also like this next sentence about how “I turned him around tonight, so he could face the stars.” I didn’t write about this in the essay, but stars have always been really important to me, and I look for them in all of my favorite places. There was practically zero light pollution in Hawaii because we had these huge telescopes up on Mauna Kea. My friends and I would often go out to look at the stars on our sleepovers and have what we thought were “deep, reflective” conversations. As a result, stars symbolize a kind of reflective time to me. So, adding them to my essay about reflecting and overcoming obstacles was a sort of “hidden easter egg” to me. I know it doesn’t seem like much, but I’m still proud. It feels like I’m finally writing for myself, which is a new feeling for me.

The creativity I was talking about previously stems from these next few sentences. I like that I decided to embody William and his positioning when saying, “It’s almost as if he’s been looking towards the past instead of the opportunities in front of him. Maybe much like I have.” I liked that I could tie the previous concrete details of him sitting away from my window to something larger, like my college transition. I thought that was pretty creative. In my previous writing history, creative writing was always put on the back burner. I have probably written 100 of the same cookie-cutter literary analysis essays with the same boring tone. Before this essay, however, I had perhaps written five creative works for a class. Honestly, I was just surprised that I had these creative thoughts within me, but I was proud that I did. It was a validating moment for me.

I like this paragraph because I surprised myself with how creative I could be with the simple question, “how is he positioned on the windowsill?” This paragraph originally started as a joke. I was distraught in my room and basically complaining to my friends that I didn’t know what concrete details about William I could add to my essay. One of my friends, Sanibel, joked that I could write about him being “approximately 45.5º titled away from the plant” that also sat by my window. Although I didn’t write about this angle, it made me think of William’s position in my room and how he is seemingly always looking toward me.

These paragraphs are from my favorite work of the year, my meditation on an object essay. I decided to write about a statue that my friend, Krish, gave me at the end of our senior year. The figure is a replica of one of the Met’s most famous artifacts, William the Hippo. These paragraphs are at the end of my essay, and I decided to reflect more on the actual meaning of William/why I rely so heavily on him. Before this point in the essay, I explained how Krish gave me the piece, how my friendship with Krish started and unfolded, and how William influenced my college transition.

This is a new sentence that I wrote, and I like this question for some reason. In one of my classes, Global Implications of Climate Change, we’ve talked a lot about academia because it’s an “Enduring Questions” course and collaborates under many different departments. We’ve discussed how many problems aren’t solved because there is a lack of collaboration across college communities/fields and because academia is often siloed off. This idea made me think about what questions aren’t answered in college or what is often ignored. When looking at this library section, it seems like Russian studies are overlooked and, as a result, are probably siloed off a lot. It makes me wonder how many things there are to discover in this department and what more I can do to help it.

One of my other goals was to make my Stacks Exploration essay more connected to the themes I talked about in my research inquiry and reflect more on my internal thoughts. The opening of my research inquiry discusses how I don’t necessarily understand why I want to investigate Russia (and potentially major in it), but I just do. I thought this idea fit well with my theme of how all inquiries and academic interests are valid, no matter how random or forgotten they might be.

The main thing I struggled with in my research inquiry was providing context for my sources and information. As a result, this was one of the skills that I wanted to work on throughout the year. In my previous draft of my Stacks Exploration, I briefly mentioned Dmitry Muratov as a Russian Nobel Peace Prize winner. However, after reading the draft back, I felt like you still didn’t really understand who he was or how influential he truly was to me. Sure, I mentioned he talked about Russian Revolutions and journalism, but that could mean a lot. The October Revolution? The Bolshevik Revolution? The Russian and Ukrainian Revolutions in the present? I thought that this would be a good way to practice my context skills. I think introducing his newspaper, what he investigated, and his mentality towards all inquiries conveys who he was as a person and how his work can be inspiring. As a result, I think this was a successful change in providing more context.

I changed some of the detail/concrete imagery to match my writing style more. There were some questionable word choices in this section previously. For example, I changed “the antiquity of these books” to “a relic of the past.” Not only does antiquity not traditionally fit in this context, but I don’t think it matches my writing style. As a result, I think that some of my details provide better imagery, and it better matches my writing style.

I decided to edit/add to my Stacks Exploration Essay. For this project, I went to section JN of the library, the Political Institutions and Public Administration of the USSR and Russian Federation section. I wanted to work on this one-pager because it was one of my stronger works, but most importantly, it was the one-pager that I had the most fun working on. I thought that it would be interesting to come back to this project after writing my research inquiry and provide more insight into how the exploration impacted my writing.