This essays shows improvement in my writing style, especially compared to where I was at the beginning of the year. Areas which I have improved on as a writer are the following:
1. Finding a strong thesis. You can see my thesis is the last line of the first paragraph. At the beginning of the year I had trouble writing a strong thesis statement. My first draft's thesis statement was "DOTA is a good game." I now know that thesis was weak so I worked with my teacher to improve it as you can see in the artifact above. 2. Using a stronger opening example. My first draft had no opening example but just began talking about why you should play DOTA. After looking at some other essay examples I realized that my introduction should be stronger. To do this I started with the idea of winning 5 million dollars for playing video games since it will grab the attention of readers. I think I still need to work more on this area in the future to make my introductions stronger. But I know I'm better at it now that I was a the beginning of the year. 3. Stronger titles. My first titles were boring. I found out after doing peer review that no one else thought my early essay titles were interesting. So I brainstormed a bunch of titles and came up with a stronger one that better grabs the reader's attention.
Other things this essay shows:
1. It shows how I am able to use transitions well in order to move from idea to idea easily. (TSW 5) Examples: "Some other similar games..." and "Another bad thing about..." are used to introduce new paragraphs/ideas. 2. As mentioned above, it shows I can write a solid thesis statement. My thesis statement is "DOTA is a Massively Multiplayer Online Game where you can have a fun time with a variety of game modes and heroes, but it lacks good graphics." (TSW 2) 3. It shows I can use good supporting examples to prove my point. At the end of the essay I have used several visual examples as evidence to support my thesis. (TSW 3)