Reflection on Feedback from the Writing Center

One of the issues identified by the writing specialist is about the thesis statement. She
highlighted some of the errors that I had committed when writing the thesis statement. First, she
made it clear that since the thesis statement is not a quote from any source, I should not use
quotation marks. Another issue with how I had written the thesis statement is that I had started
the sentence with the words, “the thesis statement is.” The writing specialist who reviewed my
paper, however, made it clear that those words are not necessary. A reader knows that the thesis
statement is the last sentence in the first paragraph. Also, the way I frame the sentence should tell
the reader that that is actually the thesis statement.
The second issue identified in the review is the use of in-text citations to acknowledge
ideas that I had retrieved from other sources. The remark was made in line with a statement in
the first paragraph which is an idea from a scholar, but I have not provided any citation for the
same. The issue of citing sources was repeated severally as I had omitted citations severally in
other paragraphs in the paper. I found it surprising that I am not supposed to mention the words
“thesis statement” when introducing it in a paper. I thought it was allowed and have done it
severally in the past.
On the positive side, I got a comment that I had a good conclusion. The writing specialist
mentioned that it was thorough. I liked it because the feedback was not only on mistakes made
but also even on areas that I have done well. I found the feedback helpful because I was able to
identify some common mistakes that I have continually made in writing my past papers. I will
thus make my papers better as I will implement those changes in the future.

REFLECTION ON FEEDBACK FROM THE WRITING CENTER 3
Overall, I found the review tool very useful. It helped me improve my academic writing
skills, specifically on when to cite and how to integrate research into my paper. I will definitely
use the University of Arizona Global Campus Writing Center to review my work in the future.
This is because the writing center allows me to have my work reviewed by a writing specialist. I
am thus able to use the feedback received to fine-tune my writing skills and get better at writing.