Always Something to Improve Upon

Today I was given an essay I wrote earlier and was asked to reread it…

…and then I was asked to fix it.

If you're in school now or have ever been in school, or if you're a regular human being, I'm sure you've had to write an essay before. Therefore, you must know how excruciating it is to read an old essay once you've learned how to better your writing. Of the essay I was given, this is the paragraph I chose to do-over:

"Single stories are a form of stereotype that are common everywhere and surround everyone. It is only dangerous to know one story of something or someone not because it's false, but because that story is incomplete. Stereotypes not only have the potential to hurt others; they also limit our view of the world. By only seeing someone as their one story, we keep ourselves from learning more about the world and getting a different perspective. In The Complete Persepolis, Marjane quickly became the victim of the single story and experienced it firsthand."

Above, there are a few sentences that are oddly worded and the paragraph is lacking detail. I failed to give a summary of the book in the thesis statement. Here is the re-done paragraph:

"Single stories are a form of stereotype that are common everywhere and surround everyone. It is dangerous to know only one story of something or someone not because it is false, but because that story is incomplete. Stereotypes not only have the potential to hurt others; they limit our view of the world. By only seeing someone as their one most common stories, we keep ourselves from learning more about the world and getting a different perspective. In The Complete Persepolis, Marjane becomes the victim of the single story and experiences it firsthand when her country, Iran, is thrown into war and she escapes to Austria in an attempt to continue her education and ensure a bright future not compromised by warfare."

I went back and fixed some of the wording and changed some of the tenses to present tense. Also, I added onto the thesis statement so that the reader of the essay would have an idea of what happened in The Complete Persepolis. When I reread my essay, I did feel slightly embarrassed about some of the mistakes I made because they seemed obvious, especially mistakes about the way things were worded. If I could go back and rewrite it, I would make sure not to be so vague with my thesis statement, as that seems to be a recurring problem with my writing. Practice makes perfect, so i guess I'll just have to keep on practicing!

For my next essay, I'll definitely take more time and read over, making a mental checklist of my common mistakes (i.e.; vague thesis statements, lack of present tenses…), and fingers crossed by the end of the year, my writing will be transformed!